People v Terrence Truitt: an interesting timeline of deaths/murders and fires in the area, as well as visits of high officials. Is Terrence Truitt a fall guy for the cover up of some local official's involvement in a global child pornography ring?

Update: Terence Triutt has been released from prison as innocent, charges dropped.

This is the 4th article in a series of articles about the case People v Terrence Truitt, pending in Oneonta, New York, Otsego County.

Part I of the series is here.

Part II - here.

Part III - here.


Here is an interesting timeline of some events in Otsego County and the neighboring Delaware and Broome Counties that can help add some perspectives to analysis of this undoubtedly criminal case - but with a likely wrong defendant.

In creating this timeline, I used documents about federal criminal cases against Christian Maire and Justin Hobbie that I personally obtained from Pacer.gov, information from the New York State Department of Education (regarding teaching certificates of Justin Hobbie), a press-release of the New York State Governor's office (about the visit of Lt Governor to Oneonta, NY, on December 19, 2018), from Senator Seward's Facebook page, and open-access materials of mass media sources.

1-Feb-02	Provisional certificate in Physical Education issued by the New York State Department of Education to Justin Hobbie, 41, expired 1/31/2007
1-Jan-05	Justin Hobbie's wife finds child pornography on her husband's computer and tells him to delete it
1-Jan-05	Justin Hobbie starts working in Cooperstown School District - according to press reports: "Justin Hobbie, 41, taught gym and health classes at the school for 13 years and coached girls soccer and track. "
1-Feb-07	Permanent certificate in Physical Education issued by the New York State Department of Education to Justin Hobbie
1-Jan-08	The first date listed on seethroughny.net when Justin Hobbie worked for Cooperstown Central School, no prior data is available on the cite, possibly, Justin Hobbie started working in the Cooperstown Central School in 2002, when his provisional certificate was issued
1-Sep-12	Health Education Professional Certificate issued by the New York State Department of Education to Justin Hobbie
21-Mar-16	The Superintendent of Justin Hobbie's school, Clifton J. Hebert, is found dead in the woods, allegedly after an ATV "accident".  No homicide investigation occurs.
23-Oct-17	A criminal complaint is filed against Christian Maire, of Binghamton, NY, of being a ringleader of a global child pornography production, possession and distribution ring
23-May-18	Christian Maire, 40, of Binghamton, NY, pleads guilty in a federal court in Massachussets, to charges of production, possession and distribution of child pornography in a global child pornography ring. "Nine men, who formed a porn posse dubbed the “Bored Group,” posed online as teenage boys for years to manipulate teen girls into performing sex acts while they watched for their perverse pleasure.
	More than 100 girls across the country, ranging in age from 10 to 17, were victimized and sexually exploited by the group, which operated from 2012 to 2017, according to the Detroit Free Press. " The group's members divided themselves into three groups, each with a specific role in manipulating their teen victims: “talkers,” “hunters,” and “loopers,” according to court records cited by the paper.
	The "talkers" were responsible for finding young victims; The “hunters" were in charge of luring those very same girls to unmonitored chat rooms where they were coerced into on-camera sexual acts (in one particularly grotesque case, a girl was manipulated into having sex with her dog); Then, there were the "loopers,” whose role was to intervene if a victim became suspicious or didn’t want to perform sexually, figuring out a way to force victims to do so, even if that meant blackmail.
	Some girls were even coerced into cutting themselves.
12-Oct-18	Otsego County Judge John F. Lambert, 45-46 (admitted to practice in January, 1999), is given an award by a large local business, the Clark Foundation, for working as a coach in Cooperstown School District where his three children - Jack, a senior in that high school, a Anna, a sophomore in that high school, and Charlie, a middle schooler (7th grader) in that school, are studying
5-Dec-18	A federal judge accepts Christian Maire's plea agreement
5-Dec-18	At Christian Maire's sentencing, one of the victims of Christian Maire's ring explained to the court that she submitted to the ring's desires because of threats to her own and her family members' lives.  "She said she thought the members of the group were her friends.
	“I was blackmailed into doing things I didn't want to do,” she said. "They would threaten to come to my house and hurt my family and I. They even named everyone in my house, so I knew that these threats were serious. They would tell me to take off my clothes and touch myself in sexual ways. So, I would try to accommodate their desires because I was scared."
6-Dec-18	Justin Hobbie is arrested after federal law enforcement executes a search warrant at his home issued by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York and, according to the criminal complaint, allegedly find child pornography and evidence of its distribution, on Justin Hobbie's gaming home computer and on his personal cell phone, ages of children in the images are allegedly 3 to 12.
7-Dec-18	A criminal complaint for possession and distribution of child pornography is filed in federal court against Justin Hobbie.  On the same day, he resigned as a coach of the Cooperstown School District.
11-Dec-18	Superintendent of the Cooperstown School District Bill Crankshaw disclosed that he talked to 7th graders to seniors in high school about their "level of concern" and that he created a "response team" to talk to students (potential witnesses).  "Superintendent William Crankshaw sent audio messages to the school community on Sunday and Monday nights to inform parents of the meeting and ensure to them crisis response teams will have a plan and “the necessary staff is in place to discuss students’ feelings during this most unsettling time.”
12-Dec-18	A U.S. Assistant Attorney talks to 175 parents of Cooperstown School District and tells them that the arrest of Justin Hobbie is only the "top of the iceberg", and that the investigation will continue, mentions that the teacher will remain in federal custody until at least December 19, 2018, his detention hearing
13-Dec-18	New York State Senator James Seward visits Oneonta, NY, ostensibly to read to his granddaughter's Kindergarten class at a Christian school
19-Dec-18	New York State Lt Governor Hochul visits Oneonta, NY, ostensibly to visit some local businesses.
28-Dec-18	A house in the teacher's hometown burns to ashes
29-Dec-18	The former East Meredith firefighter John Heller dies, according to the coronoer's report, of smoke inhalation, after he succeeded in saving his 4 young nephews and his fiancee, also a firefighter, from a fire on the 3rd floor of the apartment building
31-Dec-18	Terrence Truitt was arrested and charged with arson that supposedly resulted in John Heller's death.
3-Jan-19	A GoFundMe campaign for the legal defence of Terrence Truitt was shut down after it collected $225 towards the $5,500 retainer of a private attorney.  Timothy Truitt, one of the brothers of Terrence Truitt, who has filed the GoFundMe petition, mentioned in the petition, with details, that his brother, a man of color, was racially profiled and framed.  Oneonta, NY and Otsego County, NY, indeed, have a long history of racial profiling in criminal cases.
4-Jan-19	Christian Maire is murdered in federal detention while waiting to be assigned a federal prison for his sentence
4-Jan-19	John Heller is buried, with New York State Senator Seward present. "At the service, state Sen. James Seward, R-Milford, presented the Heller family with a New York State Liberty Medal and said a commendation would be made on the Senate floor so Heller would be “a permanent part of New York state’s record and history.”"
4-Jan-19	A felony hearing is held for Terrence Truitt, with an assigned attorney James Hartmann, who is married to Nancy Deming, law clerk of a local criminal court judge Gary Rosa.  Hartmann, instead of moving to dismiss the case because the prosecution's main witness did not have the necessary documents to base the charges upon, agreed to adjournment of the felony hearing and to continuiation of his client's detention in the Otsego County Jail.
9-Jan-19	Autopsy of Christian Maire's body shows he was stabbed repeatedly, according to the investigation, by 7 inmates
10-Jan-19	Truitt is held for the action of the grand jury by Judge Lucy Bernier (a former board member of the Oneonta performing arts center previously sued for racial profiling of renters and denying available rental spaces to minority-owned businesses)

What can we take from this timeline combining events from several events, occurrences and criminal cases centered in Otsego and the neighboring Broome County?

Here it is.

On December 5, 2018 a local (Binghamton, NY) man is sentenced in federal court as a ringleader of a global ring creating, possessing and distributing child pornography.

At the sentencing, one of the victims mentions that she was coerced into participating in creation of child pornography because members of the ring enumerated for her members of her family and threatened their, and her own, lives, if she does not comply with their demands.

At the same sentencing, the victim also predicted that Christian Maire will be beaten severely in prison.

The sentencing information has been sealed, Christian Maire was placed into a federal detention center awaiting assignment of prison as his permanent incarceration destination, but what is mentioned in the open records is that the court "accepted the plea" - obviously in return for giving the court and the prosecution valuable information about the ring.

The very next day, a health class and physical education teacher of 13 years (and a girls' coach) of a local school where, by mere coincidence, three children of one of the local criminal court judges go and where that criminal court judge is volunteering as the porn-creator's colleague, another coach, is arrested for creation, possession and distribution of child pornography.

The judge (John F. Lambert) and his three children become at least witnesses in a child pornography investigation.  The children - as potential victims.  The judge - as a parent of potential victims and at the very least as a witness of a crime, if he knew of his colleagues activities in the child pornography ring, or as a co-participant, if he knew and participated in the ring.

The teacher's wife, a kind woman, told the federal law enforcement when they found child pornography on her husband's computer and cell phone that it was not accidental or first time, or "a virus brought it", but that she has found child pornography on his computer 13 years prior - back in 2005, when he had still a provisional teaching certificate, and told him to erase that child pornography from his computer.

"Coincidentally", 2 years prior to the arrest, the Superintendent of that same school district was found in the woods dead, supposedly because of an "ATV accident", and the case was not investigated as a homicide.

The new superintendent of the Cooperstown School District, likely, knowing how his predecessor ended up dead in the woods, immediately after arrest of the teacher, engaged in tainting memories of children, potential witnesses and/or victims of a crime of creation, possession and distribution of child pornography, on a global scale, under the guise of creating a "crisis team" that absolutely needs to talk to child witnesses to "help them cope" with "what occurred".

Then, parents, riled up by the arrest, were gathered by a federal prosecutor and told that the investigation into the child porn ring continues and that the arrest is just "the top of the iceberg".  The prosecutor also hinted that the teacher may be released after his detention hearing.

The very next day, the teacher, through his attorney, notified the court that he is just fine in federal detention and does not want to be released from there (obviously considering federal detention safer).

On the same day as Justin Hobbie waived his detention hearing, Senator James Seward shows up in Oneonta, NY, publicizing his visit as an opportunity to read to his granddaughter's Kindergarten class in an Oneonta Christian School.

On the supposed day of federal detention hearing (now waived) Lt Governor of the State of New York happened to visit the area and talk to local officials.

Within 8 days of her visit, Christian Maire, the likely source of information about the teacher, files a notice of appeal, appealing his conviction and sentence.

The next day, a house in the town where the arrested teacher lived burnt to ashes.

The next day after that, the apartment building of the local former firefighter (about the same age as the local teacher) burns, and the former local firefighter dies - supposedly of "smoke inhalation", supposedly while saving his four young nephews and his fiancée who herself happens to be an able bodied and fully trained firefighter who could participate in saving the boys rather than waiting to be saved by her former colleague and present fiancé.

"Smoke inhalation" is a very convenient cause of death - it does not show whether a person has lost consciousness prior to inhaling the smoke, and whether anybody, using the chaos of the fire in an apartment building, caused John Heller to lose consciousness, either by knocking him out, or by simply holding his neck artery for a couple of minutes.

Within several more days, on January 4, 2019, a week after Christian Maire filed a notice of appeal, Christian Maire was exposed in federal detention to a mob of 7 inmates, ages 34 to 47, according to the press, where at least 1 had a knife (prohibited by prison rules).  As a result of severe beating and stabbing, Christian Maire died - in a completely preventable death, since prison authorities knew what kind of risk an inmate with such a conviction and sentence is exposed to, and especially with a threat that he will be beaten up that came from his victim at sentencing.

Now, what makes me smell a rat here? Or several rats?

What makes me think that the Superintendent's "crisis team" is a concerted effort of damage control in a school where a judge worked, for years, as a coach, elbow by elbow with an accused child pornographer, and where the judge's three children go?

What makes me think that the visit of the State Lt. Governor to Oneonta, NY was not to tour local businesses - but to talk to local officials about this particular case and how to deflect attention of the public from the child pornography scandal?

But, what would deflect public interest from such a child pornography scandal?  A murder, of course.

And, a murder of a likeable local person, a hero.

By a dislikeable person, preferably, a person of color - in this particular area, that is important, given its history of racial profiling in criminal cases.

What makes me think that the fire in the town where the arrested teacher lives was a warning to him to keep his lips tight?

What makes me think that John Heller may have been a witness in that same investigation - and was sacrificed, with an honorable and lavish funeral and a medal for heroism?

What makes me think that the teacher was shown:

• by the fire in his hometown that destroyed a house completely;
• by the death of a local person under interesting circumstances;
• by the murder of the likely source of information that has led to the teacher's arrest - a murder in federal detention, no less, where the teacher thought it is safer for him to remain, and not to be released 

that he is not safe even in federal detention, and that he should not repeat the fate of Christian Maire and should keep his lips shut?

What makes me think that there are more people in high places involved in that child pornography ring if such forces are deployed in quashing the case and intimidating or brainwashing potential witnesses?

And, what makes me think that Terrence Pruitt was simply chosen as yet another sacrifice, a fall guy in that cover up?

And what makes me think that there was a concerted effort of those behind the cover up to make it impossible for the indigent Terrence Truitt to hire a qualified private criminal defense attorney and instead to be stuck with Judge Lucy Bernier's interesting "choice" of an assigned attorney - a husband of a law clerk of one of the few criminal judges in the area (who all talk to one another and, if necessary, arrange the necessary cover-ups)?

Now, who, under these circumstances, will preside over the criminal case of the fall guy, Terrence Truitt?

Judge John Lambert, well-known for coverups in favor of local police committing misconduct, and a witness (at the very least) in the likely connected child pornography case?

Judge Brian Burns whose nonprofit A.O. Fox Hospital receives, every year, tens of thousands of dollars from the nonprofit of the prosecutor assigned to the Truitt case, Michael Getman (himself a son of a judge who was caught by NY Attorney General in defrauding nonprofits by hundreds of thousands of dollars, but who escaped unscathed because of his blue blood as a son of a judge) (the source is tax returns of both nonprofits on guidestar.org)?

Judge Gary Rosa whose law clerks' husband represents the defendant in the case?

Or, will they bring in a clean judge from outside the area - if such a thing is possible in the State of New York, a clean judge?

Time flies, but what remains unchangeable in upstate New York, Otsego and Delaware Counties - is corruption of local public officials.

Stable as a rock.

On the value of reputation

Update: Terence Triutt has been released from prison as innocent, charges dropped.

This year, I have started the series of articles about the criminal case of Terrence Truitt, pending now in Otsego County, New York, see my previous blog articles about this case here and here.

A man of color is charged with arson that has ALLEGEDLY led to a death of a local former firefighter, a white man.

He was charged by an all-white police, and prosecuted by an all-white prosecution team, in front of all-white judges, and represented by a white attorney married to a white law clerk of a white judge.

In a city and area notorious for its racial bias and racial profiling in criminal cases.

Terence Truitt's reputation at this time - as well as his chances for a fair trial anywhere on this Globe - are destroyed by well-orchestrated pre-trial publicity.

Any mentioning that he is presumed innocent until and UNLESS found guilty by a fair jury of his peers meet with violent personal attacks from local people considering that the family and friends mourning the person who ALLEGEDLY died in a fire have a right to mourn by presuming guilt of whoever the police publicly points their collective fingers at.

My next blog is going to be dedicated to the bigger timeline of events in that same area, well documented, 

that may show that Terrence Truitt was no more than a fall guy carefully chosen by the police to cover up for the likely murder of the former local firefighter John Heller - for reasons having nothing to do with family feuds which is what insinuations at this time are about, that Terrence Truitt's brother Gavin lived with is girlfriend in the same building and was abusing his girlfriend (how the police jumped from that to the conclusion that Terrence Truitt set fire to the building with a lot of people, including his own brother, and for what motives, is still a mystery).

But, this blog I want to dedicate entirely to the value of reputation.

Those in power have valued their reputation from the time immemorial - above all else.

Innumerable people were tortured and executed in horrible ways because they dared to criticize authority - religious or secular.

Criticism of those in power was deemed, for millenia and centuries, heresy, treason, "seditious libel".

People who dared to do that, against all odds, were cast out of societies, cast out of churches (anathemized), and declared outlaws, which meant in earlier times that anybody had a right to kill them (or rob them of what they have) with impunity.

If you think that times have changed, democratic societies embedded freedom of speech, including and especially permission for members of those society to criticize their government officials, into their Constitutions and strictly enforce this principles, think again.

Let's take my favorite state of New York, the United States of America.

Every public official there, state and local, executive, legislative or judicial, is sworn to uphold and protect the U.S. Constitution and the New York State Constitution.

Both of these Constitutions contain guarantees of freedom of speech - and that includes, by implication, freedom of criticizing the government.

But, let's look how information criticizing the government, especially the people who can wreak the most havoc in people's lives - judges, prosecutors and the police - is made available to the people.

Or, not available.

Recently, the top New York State Court

(headed by a career prosecutor Janet DiFiore who was saved from criminal prosecution by her position as a criminal prosecutor herself, and her connections to NYS Governor Cuomo whose ass she has saved from federal prison - and who paid her and her husband with positions of super-power in return)

confirmed in a court case that the public does not have a right of access to evidence of police misconduct on Freedom of Information Requests, citing a state law.

That the state law she has cited is blatantly unconstitutional, being invented specifically to impair cross-examination/impeachment of police officers by criminal defense attorneys, and thus state law was meant to undermine federal constitutional confrontation rights under the 6th Amendment - did not bother Janet DiFiore, a former prosecutor, one bit.

So, as it is now, in New York, evidence of police misconduct is secret.

Because it is important for the government to keep their dirty secrets away from people.

And, even when such dirty secrets spill over into lawsuits when those same police officers, let's say, beat some women or try to run them down with cars - those cases are quickly shooed away, by settlements, or by corrupt judges like Otsego County Judge John F. Lambert who first

• reopened default of the former Delaware County Deputy Sheriff Derek Bowie, nephew to the then-DA's office investigator of many years in the lawsuit filed against him by Barbara O'Sullivan for trying to run her over with a police car to destroy evidence of his misconduct, the tablet she has held in her hand,
• reopened it on the idiotic claim that the same Sheriff's Department that served Derek Bowie, for money, with lawsuit papers, was not notified of the lawsuit against Derek Bowie in order to defend him in the lawsuit - which the Sheriff's Department did not need to do anyway because Bowie was sued for intentional misconduct only, and that conduct was within insurance exclusion of the County's liability policy; and
• dismissed it because Barbara O'Sullivan could not comply with discovery claimed by Derek Bowie's taxpayer-paid attorneys - why? - because her house was burned down (which she, her daughter, her unborn grandchild and 2 of 3 of their dogs narrowly escaped alive), and burned down likely by the same Derek Bowie, while the DA's office employing his uncle refused to investigate the vehicular assault of Bowie upon O'Sullivan, or the arson of O'Sullivan's house likely by Bowie, because it was busy prosecuting O'Sullivan on behalf of Bowie because Bowie was allegedly bitten by O'Sullivan's dog (who Bowie tasered) when Bowie came to O'Sullivan's house at night with a forged search warrant (to get that same tablet that he did not manage to smash and destroy the evidence of his misconduct during vehicular assault with police car on O'Sullivan).
• Judge Lambert dismissed the lawsuit of O'Sullivan against Bowie after Judge Lambert also dismissed the criminal case of DA's office employing Bowie's uncle against O'Sullivan, as based on a forged search warrant, after recognizing that testimony of Delhi Town Judge Gumo about issuing such a warrant was perjured because during the supposed issuance of the warrant Gumo was testifying about his misconduct before the Commission of Judicial Conduct and could not possibly sign the search warrant - his court clerk stamped his facsimile on it instead (that Judge Lambert did not admit in his order, but the clerk had to be ordered removed from the courtroom as a potential witness, while ardently trying to get there - knowing that she may be next).  Neither Judge Gumo, nor his clerk were charged criminally for forging (the clerk) and aiding and abetting in forging (Gumo) the search warrant.  My complaint to the Judicial Conduct Commission about Gumo, based on a COURT ORDER dismissing a criminal case based on his perjury, was tossed without anybody every contacting me or Barbara O'Sullivan about it.  Of course, how can a DA's office employing Bowie's uncle charge Gumo criminally for aiding and abetting in forging a search warrant giving Bowie power over his own victim - in arresting her and her daughter, tasing their dog, thus removing them from the house, and searching it for the tablet containing evidence of his misconduct?  The DA then became a criminal court judge, the "Honorable" Richard (Dick, which is a more appropriate name for him) Northrup, and the prosecuting Chief Assistant District Attorney John Hubbard, who is also up to his ears in this case, is now the DA in his boss's former place.

So, Judge John Lambert, the former prosecutor, made the lawsuit against Bowie to go away, and Bowie, while being quietly fired by the Delaware County Sheriff's department in 2016,

and despite two lawsuits of two look-alike women who he assaulted, see also here,

is employed as a valuable police officer some place else now.

So, thank you, Judge John F. Lambert, for helping the police keeping a violent predator on the police force, since he escaped unscathed, he will next time not just beat women up, break their ribs, traser them, put fire to their houses, taser their dogs and assault them with police vehicles, but kill them outright - with such massive support, at public expense, that has already allowed him to escape accountability, he can do nothing less to oblige impress his benefactors.

But, you will never be able to obtain evidence of misconduct of Derek Bowie through a Freedom of Information Law.

Only on Pacer.gov, materials of deposition.

Only in Delaware County Supreme Court (if they did not block the public from those materials, hide them and then destroy court materials of this case, as this particular court has a history of doing, at judges' request), when he was sued by Barbara O'Sullivan who he assaulted.

The same with judges - you won't ever have access to complaints against them, no matter how supported by verifiable documentation.

The same with prosecutors.

Yet, for judges and prosecutors, judges invented for themselves "absolute judicial/prosecutorial immunity for malicious and corrupt conduct" (!), so those lawsuits, without review on the merits, are tossed directly into the garbage bin.

So, there is, on the one hand, freedom of speech protected by the federal and state Constitutions.

On the other hand, the government, aware of the fact that reputation may be destroyed by saying several words about the person publicly - which can never be "unsaid" - devised ways to:

• pretend to create various "public bodies" (where the public is not allowed to directly participate), various "Commissions" on conduct of public officials:
• The useless Judicial Conduct Commission;
• The killed-by-its-father Moreland Commission - disbanded by New York Governor Cuomo when it started to investigate Cuomo and his buddies (the "fighter for human rights" Preet Bharara refused to prosecute him claiming everything is hunky-dory, and this presidential candidate did not commit any crimes in killing an ethics commission because it was reviewing his own ethics;
• The stillborn Prosecutorial Conduct Commission modeled on the useless Judicial Conduct Commission, see the series of my articles about it and the lawsuit interlinked in those articles, where prosecutors, among other things, are very worried about whether the Commission will upset their reputation with the public (a path to the ultimate goal, judgeships);
• The just-suggested Commission for Public Ethics, also to be modeled on the useless Judicial Conduct Commission.

At the same time, the government:

• made those proceedings, and the records of those proceedings, secret from the public;
• blocked the public from directly participating in these proceedings as a jury or grand jury, even when the issue is criminal behavior of public officials;
• populated those "public bodies" with public officials having irreconcilable conflicts of interest in investigating, prosecuting and adjudicating those cases, where, as in Judicial Conduct Commission, the overwhelming majority of the Commission is either judges or people whose livelihood depends on judges, attorneys;
• gave such Commissions insufficient budgets to investigate every complaint, so that they can explain away non-investigation of the absolute majority of complaints by lack of funds;
• blocked the public from having a right to appeal dismissals of meritorious complaints without investigation;
• invented immunities for government officials from civil lawsuits; and
• put criminal prosecution of such government officials into the hands of people whose livelihood and career depends on NOT filing those criminal charges, judicially licensed criminal prosecutors whose case often rests on suborning perjury from the police and on the judge (most often a former prosecutor) turning a blind eye to that misconduct.

Which brings me back to the issue of the value of reputation.

So, let's get it straight.

There is a constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech, and criticism of the government - on the one hand.

On the other hand, the government has invented ways to block the flow of that information to the public, immunize government officials who engage in misconduct, and make it impossible for the public to obtain effective legal remedies against those government officials for such misconduct.

Yet, when reputation of a member of the public is involved (and, let's not forget that it is the members of the public that are also members of a public sovereign, employers of the government, and those who are, in their position of power, by the U.S. and State Constitutions, higher than the government, and not the other way around), a completely different thing happens.

• The person is first very publicly charged with a heinous crime;
• Information about it is immediately spread - by the government, by those same police officers who treasure their reputation and protect evidence of their misconduct by lobbied unconstitutional laws and clan connections - on the Internet, in a police press-conference then quoted by people as irrefutable evidence of the accused's guilt (over 70+ leads, imagine, the police excluded accidental causes for the fire, they found a can of fire accelerant - with Terrence Truitt's name on it?);

• The lynch mob is immediately in power demanding on the Internet that the accused must be slowly burnt, because the family of a person who died under suspicious circumstances wants somebody's, anybody's (preferably, a colored man's) blood as a part of their grieving process - and those who remind the public of his presumption of innocence should be tarred and feathered.

Why is it so?

Wasn't the right to an open TRIAL given TO THE ACCUSED, as a guarantee of the right to a FAIR trial?

And the public's "right to know" will be satisfied all right during and after that trial, not before?

Isn't pretrial publicity considered a form of police and prosecutorial misconduct?

Don't those same police officers, prosecutors and judges HIDE complaints of their own misconduct from the public - because they know, once a word besmirching a person's reputation gets out on the World Wide Web, the damage to the person's reputation cannot be undone?

So, if the "right to an open public trial" is turned by the government on its head and is turned to besmirching the accused's reputation BEFORE that public trial, and into destroying his presumption of innocence and his chance to get that open FAIR trial from an UNTAINTED jury pool - what is the remedy?

Shouldn't we at least equalize the reputational damage visited upon people accused of criminal conduct - whether they are members of the government or not?

Shouldn't we put down the secrecy/privacy walls of 

• police misconduct;
• prosecutorial misconduct;
• judicial misconduct

proceedings - just as police and prosecutors splurge the information about the accused long before that open public trial, so that any potential jurors who would be picked for the trial, would come well brainwashed by prosecutors?

And, shouldn't the police and prosecutors PROHIBITED, BY LAW, strictly enforceable by grand juries operated only by the public, without any input from prosecutors, to publicize charges, evidence and identity of the accused in the media, newspapers, Internet, press-conferences, to make sure than, when that OPEN PUBLIC TRIAL comes, the jury gets that evidence FOR THE FIRST TIME, not after it was discussed and speculated about by the media and people in the area for months before that trial even began?

As to the interesting timeline of events not included into police press-release on the Terrence Truitt's case, but that may be relevant to the case, my next article.

When people are corrupt and drunk with power, they do not hide their ends very well.

So, as to the interesting ends in People v Terrence Truitt that the local media is afraid to cover - 

Stay tuned.

The quality of the jury pool and lynch-mobbing a presumed-innocent person of color as a legitimate way to grieve in Oneonta, New York

Update: Terence Triutt has been released from prison as innocent, charges dropped.

In my previous article about the criminal case People v Terrence Truitt, started in Oneonta, NY, Otsego County, I mentioned the history of racial profiling in that predominantly white area in criminal cases, and posted one attack on me by a potential juror from the area who called me an asshole simply for mentioning that the defendant charged with arson (in a fire where a former firefighter John Heller died after he saved his 4 young nephews and his fiancée) is presumed innocent.

That is part of standard jury instructions usually given to potential jurors by the court, and that is a fundamental constitutional right.

But no.  Not in Oneonta, New York.  Not in Otsego County.

In Otsego County white men and women come to comment on posts made in local newspapers by all-white police and all-white prosecution in order to "grieve" and "mourn" the victim, and their mode of mourning and grieving is - lynch-mobbing a person of color picked by the police for a crime, and, yes, presumed innocent at the time.

Anybody who mentions presumption of innocence is:

• meddling;
• harassing people;
• deliberately hurting people - that is what I read in comment I was doing by mentioning Terrence Truitt's presumption of innocence

Go away, a@@hole.

You only have to pay taxes to support our local government, including racist police and prosecution, but you have no right to criticize them.

Many, many commentators tried to shoo me away from the thread where people were "grieving" by listing the ways they want the presumed-innocent colored man to die because he was already ruled guilty-by-news release.

Here are some of the comments - any criminal defense attorney worth his salt would have a galore reviewing these comments from potential jurors and likes and loves posted to those comments.

So, here is the perception of white people about the colored (and presumed-innocent) defendant Terrence Truitt charged with a crime of arson in a case where a former firefighter died - charged by local law enforcement that, by virtue of obvious conflict of interest (investigating circumstances of the death of "one of their own") should not have been allowed any place close to the investigation.

Here is my comment.

Here is the reaction to that comment of the potential jurors.

So, all these nice white people 

• want a person of color charged with a crime to die - because they are sure he is guilty, because the police said so in a press conference designed to inflame the jury pool; and
• are viciously attacking anybody who so much as mentioned the very basic concept of presumption of innocence, from their own Constitution.

Here are people who considered it necessary, in response to my "inappropriate" mentioning Terrence Truitt's presumption of innocence, to attack me (and my husband) personally:

And, many people tried to tell me to stop commenting about presumption of innocence and go away from the thread, and even "back to Russia", for various reasons:

One person - a FB friend of a FB friend, approached stalking me on Facebook as a result of my comment about presumption of innocence, quite seriously, to the point of asking to join my group "Independence of Human Rights Defenders" - but then lashing out at me in comments on the Daily Star thread, after I mentioned Otsego County's history of racial profiling:

So, this person presumes the truth in anything the police say to the media before trial - which is the reason why the police conducted the press-conferences, to firmly embed the presumption of guilt in the minds of potential jurors.

Remember, this person, Marshall Kruse, believes that to burn a man of color accused of a crime and presumed innocent is too easy a death for him:

Because I interfere with how people grieve and mourn (and lynch-mob a presumed-innocent man of color):

Only two other commentators out of many, many commentators on that thread mentioned presumption of innocence not in a derogatory fashion:

The comments demonstrate the chances of the accused to get a fair trial in this case in this area - or, possibly, anywhere else, since all this publicity is readily available from any place on this planet.

This area appears to be hopelessly racist - specifically because they consider it a legitimate way to grieve the loss of a loved one to invent ways how to kill in the most horrible manner and inflicting the most torture upon a presumed-innocent man of color before seeing any evidence against him in the court of law, and before any jury verdict.

I will address the contents, and impropriety of those contents, of the police video press-conference and the right of the accused to an open fair trial, in the next articles.

Stay tuned.