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CHAPTER ONE
"Let him speak! Let him speak!" All the people in the courtroom were yelling. There were 65+ cops in and around the building and snipers on the surrounding rooftops.
"This courtroom is closed!" BANG went the gavel and Judge Dorothy Baker ran down the stairs back into her chambers. Dorothy Baker looks like a spawned out singer in some downtown flophouse bar. Mid-to-late forties, heavy smoker, very lined face. She has a wasted look to her.
"The courtroom is NOT closed! People do not leave this courtroom!" I said, and began speaking on the record about all this corruption, while Judge Baker hid in her chambers.
All of a sudden the door to the jury room opens up. It reminded me of when I was a kid, down at the coast. There was a kind of a fish, a flounder fish, a perch. It gave birth to live babies. They'd sorta spurt out, one, then another and so on. I looked up and—pop, then pop, pop— 12 red-faced police officers had been hiding in the jury room. In single file they emerged from the jury room, silently, and walked out the courtroom exit. Everything stopped and everybody watched. They thought this terrorist was going to take over, but we were very orderly people sitting there, and me speaking.
About that time Judge Baker re-entered the courtroom all disheveled, looking like she'd been shot out of a cannon.
"I want to make a record here," I said. I had all my files.
"I'm canceling the hearing to have you examined to see if you can aid and assist in your own defense," Baker responded.
"No! I want to make a recor-" I was forced down, face down, on the council table by the guards. They put the handcuffs on behind me. My 82-year-old Mother started toward us.
"You stay back or you'll get arrested too!" the guards warned her as I was hustled out of there. Baker fled the courtroom amid shouts from the crowd.
"You're gonna pay for this Baker! This is tyranny!" said investigative reporter Ed Snook as he left the courtroom.
I am at war with this
corruption, and any time you're at war
it is always a tactical operation. If it becomes solely an
emotional reaction, you cannot organize and you can't plan. For
most of the people I'm involved with, it's emotional because
something has been taken: their children, their lands, their
money—and they're distressed.
Here is a description of the players, how they got involved,
the events that occurred, and how this all came about.
Milton Brown, this thieving little attorney, is the core of the
cancer. He once told fellow attorney Nick Albrecht that he went
to law school to learn how to steal, the viper. He's wiped out
every partner he ever had, at least 10, and many tenants as well.
He's amassed a fortune of between $3- and 4-hundred million
simply by being able to control the legal system. He
has completely corrupted the state government.
There is a good-'ol-boy network that has existed here for years.
Brown was looked at as a pariah even by that group. You
couldn't find a person that had anything other than contempt
for him. He used to work out down at the "Y" where he
wore these pooka shells around his neck, and copper bracelets.
He's about 5-foot 6 or 7, nervous little voice, he's so crooked
that he cannot look you in the face. He controls all this money,
and if you control money in our system, you control
everything. Attorney Milton Brown was Don Kettleberg's partner.
Together, they owned 35 million dollars-worth of property.
Kettleberg confided to friends that, if he tried to
dissolve the partnership, he knew he would be wiped out.
When Don Kettleberg met Janette Kent, she was 22 and he was
45. He was attracted to Janette because she was young, she was
beautiful, she was intelligent and accomplished, she was not
jealous and possessive, and for a guy like Kettleberg it was
ideal. Don had been a womanizer. He had a lot of other
girlfriends, but Janette Kent was unique. She was a good cook, a
pianist—she taught piano—and she was a tremendous ice
skater. Because of her personality, Don could come and go as he
pleased. There was no suspicion on her part about Kettleberg
because she just lived in her own little world. He took care of
her apartment and her expenses, and they had a long 10- or
12-year affair.
Janette had a very unusual personality. She wrote a
multi-national nuclear disarmament agreement when she was in
her early twenties. She excerpted parts of other proposals
written by other scientists and came up with her own proposal.
Then she formed this group called Mission: World Peace, and she
was going to save the world, solve the world's problems, solve
the danger of nuclear annihilation. She was very naïve.
She thought that if her plan was not implemented all humanity
was at risk. She was young and attractive and she'd go out and
speak to these groups, and men always make over young attractive
women! Obviously! And so she thought what she was writing was
great, even though she had only plagiarized all these
world-renowned scientific scholars. But it was her nuclear
proposal, and she became totally committed to it. I think
Kettleberg humored her and went along with it.
Janette had split up with Don about a year and a half before
he died. There were accusations back and forth. Another man had
become involved: Mark Maxin, who was 30 years younger than
Kettleberg. He was attracted to Janette and fomented the split.
He lived in the same apartment complex they did since he was
about 12-years-old, so they took on a kind of parenting
relationship with him. But he was 10 years younger than
Janette. All of a sudden, young boy 12 turns into young man
18-19, and he's enamored with Janette, and she is mentally more
in league with Mark than with Don Kettleberg.
Kettleberg had a drinking problem and cirrhosis of the
liver. He had a very rough complexion and was getting dermabrasion
treatments. Dr. Charles Hahn was his treating doctor.
Doctor Hahn was also his business partner in Battleground
Mobile Home Park in Battleground, WA. He owed Kettleberg about
$50,000 in what is called a capital account. Hahn owned one
third and Kettleberg owned two thirds of that mobile home
park.
When you are partners like that and the partnership has
expenses, then each partner has a capital account that he
has to keep filled in order to meet the needs of the
development enterprise. Hahn was down about $50,000 in his
capital account. He was behind on payments, and Kettleberg was
putting up his money for him. Like most doctors, Hahn was always
pressed for money because of his living style. They have a
girlfriend and a nice home, a Mercedes and all these
toys, so they're always tapped out.
Kettleberg knew he was terminal early in 1985. In
discussions with Jack Blampe, a former business partner of Milton
Brown and Kettleberg, Jack believed that Dr. Hahn was injecting Don
with a toxin to aggravate his failing liver condition and speed up
the process. Later, when we acquired Kettleberg's medical records,
we discovered one of the last entries written there by Dr. Hahn:
"Do not resuscitate."
Milton Brown didn't think there was anyone out there because
Kettleberg had been adopted and he was not married. However, he
had an adopted sister named Doreen Moriarty. Kettleberg was
terminal, so the Moriartys were called. I don't know whether
they arrived in time to see him still alive or not. They came
up to Portland within a few days of his death and moved into
his house up in Mountain Park thinking that, since there was no
one else, Doreen Moriarty would inherit the estate. Doreen's
husband was a city councilman in one of the cities down in the
Los Angeles area. He owned a fireworks business there and
had gotten caught in a kickback scheme, bribing inspectors to
look the other way. He was being tried for some criminal
charges and was on his way to prison at the time.
Kettleberg died May 25th, 1985. Four days later, on May 29th,
Carolyn Brune, Milton Brown's secretary and alter ego, acting as
the personal representative of the Kettleberg estate, gave Brown
Kettleberg's power of attorney. Actually, Carolyn Brune was not made
personal representative until at least a month later. With that
power of attorney, fraudulently given and fraudulently obtained,
Brown cleaned out Kettleberg's bank accounts and safety deposit box
and picked up all of the other Kettleberg estate assets.
Carolyn Brune is a physically attractive woman, 45,
blonde hair, very mindful of her attractiveness and plays on
that. Reportedly, she was a play toy for Don Kettleberg. But she
worked for Milton Brown and was on his payroll. Legally, Carolyn
Brune could not give her boss power of attorney over an estate
over which she was not personal representative. Brown just had
her do it as if she were.
The Moriartys removed all they could of the personal
property from the house and tried to find other property. One
of the daughters took Don's car, and they went around and picked
up what other assets they could. They were looking for money
to keep Doreen's husband out of prison. When people are
stressed for money, you can control them with very little.
That's how Brown operates, and he's a master at it.
It was decided that Doreen Moriarty would be the personal
representative of the estate, but there were liens and
judgments against her husband. They found out that if she were
personal representative, her husband's creditors would be able
to get the assets. She resigned in order to have everything
passed to her children so there would be no claims and her
children's inheritance could be protected. The Moriartys then
returned to California.
Milton Brown installed Carolyn Brune as the personal
representative of the Kettleberg estate and had her appointed
by a judge. Carolyn Brune disputes that. She says Doreen Moriarty
was the one who agreed to have her appointed personal
representative. But it was all controlled by Milton Brown. With
money he controlled everything. They decided on a value for the
estate and Carolyn Brune posted a $3 million performance bond,
guaranteeing her services and accepting liability.
Brown engaged attorney Bob Chidester, who was
a nobody in the legal community. He was a flunkie for Milton
Brown and did any work that Brown didn't want to handle, a
pick-up-crumbs sort of a thing. He was brought in for that
purpose. Chidester had a drinking problem and was not a strong
personality. Milton Brown and Carolyn Brune were just
going to run this thing through the system, with Brune
as personal representative and Chidester as the attorney
for the estate. She and Bob did everything that Brown wanted.
They figured it would be easy because there was no one around.
It was going to be Carolyn Brune and Milton Brown taking down
that whole estate.
Don Kettleberg was 57 when he died, and Janette Kent was
35. She was in Salt Lake and, although they had split up, they were still
in touch with one another. Don was supposed to get back to her, and
when he didn't contact her she started looking around and found
out he was dead. She first thought he had died in a car accident and
called Gary Michaels, a local architect and friend of Kettleberg,
to ask what he knew about Don. Michaels hadn't heard that
Kettleberg had died. He had dinner with Kettleberg a few
months earlier, at which time Kettleberg confided to him that he
had written a will.
"Well, did you get a copy of the will?" Michaels asked
Janette.
"No," she said. Janette was not looking for the will. She
was simply looking for her pictures with Kettleberg.
Memorabilia. She did not know that she had been named.
"Well, I'll go down and check because Don told me he left
everything to you." So Gary Michaels went down and found out
that the estate was being probated as an intestacy, meaning,
without a will. Gary phoned Janette.
"You better get an attorney. I think I smell a rat." That
was in late summer of 1985, and that's when Janette hired attorney
Farris Booth.
Brown knew there was no way the Moriartys could mount an
attack, to do what I'm doing, trying to recover the Kettleberg
estate. The husband was already a crook and was on his
way to prison. The Moriatys came up looking for money to keep their
appeal process going. They went through the house,
stripping it of valuables. There was no way that they could
ever even begin to penetrate the fraud.
When the Moriartys returned in October of 1985, Brown fired
Chidester. He thought there might be a challenge and knew he
couldn't use Chidester. He didn't want to lose any more assets,
so he hired Guy Marshall. Guy Marshall was in the firm of
Tooze/Kerr/Marshall, which had been Tooze/Kerr/Peterson. The
Peterson was Ed Peterson, Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme
Court. Marshall had been guilty of defrauding a client, and
there was a lot of heat on him. That case was in progress
before Brown contacted him, but it made no difference to Brown
because Brown always wants someone who is crooked. Those are
the only people he will deal with! However, once Guy Marshall
was convicted, his partner, Michael Gentry, came in and has been
there now for 16 years protecting the theft, ostensibly as the
attorney for the estate. Marshall was named first, but he went
to jail. The Tooze/Kerr/Marshall firm was on board at that time,
though, and they have been there ever since. I think it's
Tooze/Kerr/Schenker now that Marshall is off the marquee.
Brown also got attorney Gar King, who is now a US District
Court judge, to represent Dr. Charles Hahn, Kettleberg's
personal physician and business partner. Brown drew in these
attorneys of good repute early on. They thought there would be
quick money. Gar King is in his early sixties, dapper looking
guy. He gives the impression that he knows what's going on. But
he's as controlling and treacherous as they come.
Once Milton Brown got them, he exposed them to his
liability, because the act of one is the act of all. This is what
people do not understand. When you have a conspiracy or a
theft, the act of one is the act of all. By involving other
attorneys and judges, Brown exposed them to his liability. But they
all had to maintain the appearance of conducting lawful proceedings.
There is a money cartel that is the ruling elite in Oregon.
As told to me by a former Multnomah County commissioner,
Brown is related to some of the members of that money cartel.
Brown's original name was Bronstein, Milton Bronstein. It was not Brown.
This moneyed elite basically controls everything. Its members
control the media here, The Oregonian, Oregon's
largest newspaper, and they control all of the courts. They do
not have a name. They are not an open organization.
But they've controlled the court systems for about 20 years.
They're powerful enough to threaten, blackmail, or pay off
judges and attorneys. Judges are not put into place
unless they pass political muster with this powerful group, which
also puts in their preferred politicians—all of our politicians from
Hatfield on and further back. If you're not approved
by that group, you are never allowed into the system. Anyone
who gets into the system and does not go along with the
operation or the power structure they've set up, is forced out.
They always control the courtroom because, in a commercial culture
such as ours, that's where all the wealth is controlled. Milton Brown
could control the court because he knew who was calling the
shots and was close to them.
Vera Katz is the present mayor of Portland. Prior to this, she was a
state representative, and then BINGO! She became
Speaker of the House in Salem. During her tenure as Speaker
of the House, all this "New World Order" legislation came out,
this "Goals 2000." Katz went from being the Speaker to being the
Mayor of Portland. Mayor is considered a step up from Speaker
of the House because it includes a staff. As mayor, she controls the
police department and all the agencies. Vera Katz and Beverly
Stein, who's the Chair of the County Commissioners, are cut from
the same mold as state senator Kate Brown; they're all ardent feminists.
They have implemented this total control regimen that has us all by the
throat. They control the administrative agencies as well as
the executive agencies.
I went on inactive status with the Oregon State Bar in the
beginning of 1987, so I'd been on inactive status for almost a
year. When you are on inactive status you don't have to pay
those malpractice insurance premiums. I had taken a year off,
kinda like a sabbatical. I wanted to go down and see Krishna
Murti's home. I'd just been stressed out. They'd foreclosed on
an apartment house, and I was in the process of losing my
houseboat. There was a lot of stress on me, so I took this
time off.
In December of 1987, when I was just getting ready to go
back on active status, I met Janette Kent socially at Lido's
restaurant at 11th and Stark. I stopped in there one evening,
and she was there. She said she was the heiress of the Don
Kettleberg estate. Kettleberg had died suddenly 2 ½
years before, and he had left no living relatives. There were
reports by witnesses that Kettleberg had left her the estate.
But when they went to the safety deposit box, it was empty.
Everything had been cleaned out. She told me briefly about her
case and asked if I would help. I knew who Milton Brown was.
I knew he was a pariah in the legal community because he had
this horrible reputation of being so corrupt. I didn't know him
well, but I knew he was a crook. I knew Kettleberg slightly. I'd
talked to him a couple of times. I said I'd check into it.
One of the names she gave me was Gary Michaels, who was
a local architect that I knew. He was the partner of a fellow
who lived down at the Portland Rowing Club, and he also worked
out at the "Y," so I saw him there from time to time.
I was hired in December of 1987. Janette had not personally
been to court, but she had hired investigators to monitor some
hearing that pertained to the case, and she had hired Farris
Booth, a prominent attorney. I knew him as an instructor in law
school and had the highest regard for him. He was a member of
one of the largest and most prominent law firms: Higgins, Booth
and someone else. When he got involved with Janette Kent, he
acknowledged that Brown was a crook. but soon even he was trying
to undermine her case. Kent's witness Glen Haddock said Booth
slept while his deposition was being taken.
"Yeah, you got a good attorney," I would have said, not
realizing he had become a crook. Farris Booth got turned by
Brown. He was in Brown's pocket already. Janette's investigators
were Ken Keller, a former District Attorney, and another fellow
from a regular firm. They were reporting that Farris Booth was
sleeping during the depositions and that he was lying to her.
Booth was making representations about what was going on
and she, through her investigators, found out that it was not
so. Booth supplied her with one set of documents, and through
the investigators, she had another. One set he presented to
her said this is what the evidence shows, and he represented
that to be fact. The investigators came up with another set
that showed that Booth had deleted portions of it and had altered
and fabricated it. Janette was back in Salt Lake when one of her
investigators told her that she had better fire Booth because he
was working against her out here.
And so, Janette Kent returned to Portland and confronted Booth
at the Tai Peng restaurant, the Chinese restaurant out by Tigard.
He claimed health conditions and financial stress to mask his
treachery and duplicity. He embraced and kissed her and tried
to romance her. Janette thinks that everyone is in love with
her anyway. She has no problem with vanity or self-image. She
thinks she's a goddess. It's amazing how delusional people can
be. But, she didn't fall for Booth's con job. She fired him. Janette
then went to one or two other attorneys, and they would express
interest, only to turn and betray her. I was about the third or
fourth. When I met her, Janette had been on this odyssey for about
a year and a half. Brown was systematically buying off every
one of her attorneys. Brown never approached me because I knew
him, that thieving little viper. I knew what a horrible
reputation he had. And I had known Don Kettleberg, too.
Janette Kent was well educated, had an academic bent,
good learning skills, and could express herself well. But she
had other very distinct personalities that could lock into place. She
could be like a little girl and would go down to Oaks Park and
get on the rides with the kids.
"Whee-ee-ee-ee!" Now, she's childlike. Then, she can turn
around and walk onto the stage, sophisticated, intelligent, serious,
and give a well-researched address on nuclear arms.
She seemed to have no idea of what was going on around
her, and when you tried to explain something to her over and over
again, you can see it was just not penetrating. She
could not understand something she had not actually
experienced. And even if she had experienced it, she
would reject it if it conflicted with her favored perceptions. Kent
would have temper tantrums. At times she'd get me in the car
and start carrying on, and I'd have to reach over and turn off
the key to stop the car because it was so ungodly to have this
creature there, just roaring. At other times she'd throw
things at me because she had this frustration and this enormous
rage over not being given what she's entitled to.
"I wonder sometimes why he'd get so mad he'd put his fist
through the wall?" she told me now and then about Kettleberg.
Well I know very well why he would do that! But to her, it
didn't even click. If a concept was not in her head, it did not
exist. Egocentric, Janette saw herself right at the center of her
world. Everything radiated outward from there. In her
perception she was always right whenever she spoke, like any
other spoiled child. They have no patience because they're
indulged. They think that whatever they think is what is
important. She would drink a lot too. Heavy boozer. She would
get delusional and could not respond to questions, and her
temperament was such that she had no ability to sit back and
listen to something being discussed if she was not in charge.
Always, she had to be the center of activity.
Being as close to her as I was under the circumstances, I
realized someone had to take on the adult role of seeing that
something got done. An adult role does not mean that you have
your way. An adult role means there is a goal that you're
trying to achieve. Your focus is on achieving that goal.
Everything you do is out of necessity for achieving that
goal, using the actors that you have available, as in a military
campaign. To my horror, what I have found is that you have
to deal with the emotional upheavals of every one of your
soldiers. They have to vent someplace and they want to
vent on whomever is nearest to them, just like a spoiled
child kicking and having a temper tantrum.
I'm accustomed to being in the military and responding when
the sergeant shouts.
"Fall out! Fall in! Grab your arms!" My response is not in
opposition.
"NO!! I'm not going out there!" Off you go to the brigade!
You are kicked out because you're not emotionally capable, and
that applies to virtually everyone in this war that I'm in.
"People, I'm at war with this corruption that's going on. It
has us by the throat!" I tell them.
The rules of law that I learned in law school,
the very concept upon which our whole culture is based,
which is unique in the history of the world, is that the citizens
are the sovereign authority of this country. Under the
Constitution, before a government agency can
do something to a person, they have to give that person equal
protection of the law and due process of law. It's not optional
for them. Fair hearing. Impartial judge. That has now been stripped
out of the system. It does not exist. And people need to get
over this idea that,
"That's MINE!"
People, listen. I don't care what you think. THEY'VE GOT
IT! And the only way they're going to give it back is like
when a wolf has your little baby.
"C'mon wolf," you say. "Give it back, ple-e-a-a-se?
I've worked hard all my life, wolf. I worked hard to raise that
baby."
And do you think he's going to give it back? No! You go over
with a club and a blow torch and a pair of pliers, and you put
so much pain on that creature that is stealing something of
yours, that it is such a shock and causes him so much
pain, that the pain of keeping it is greater than the pain of
cutting it loose. And that applies across the board to all
animal life. It applies to people, too. We started as a colony
and what has happened here is that the money powers have been
able to completely reassert control over the colonies.
I thought that my difficulty would be in getting Janette Kent
declared the beneficiary. There was a question as to whether or
not Janette was the sole beneficiary of the estate, and I was
having trouble finding an attorney that would take the case. I
couldn't fight it because I was still on inactive status. First
I went to Marvin Nepom, a prominent attorney here in Portland.
"No, I'm too busy," he said.
Then I called Jack Kennedy, who was the partner of Gar King
and another prominent attorney in town. I had him as an
instructor at North Western University, and he was very strict.
His students were not allowed to write one minute overtime on a
test. He was watching, making sure. They would impose on the students
this moral ethic that they professed with such fervor and, of
course, I believed that it was so. Little did I know!
He put me off to Gary McMurry, whom I knew slightly, and I
did get McMurry to take it. Gary McMurry was an accomplished trial
attorney but he wouldn't spend any money on the case at all. He
said he wouldn't do it unless I stayed and did all the legwork on it.
Gary McMurry was in his late 50's at the time. He looked like
a gray-haired owl to me. He has this little beaky nose,
glasses, and speaks very perfunctorily. He's very mechanical,
extremely opinionated and egotistical, but he is a good trial
attorney. I've known the guy for 30 years. McMurry said he was
only concerned about the probate, not about going after Brown.
There was 4½ million dollars in the estate at that
time. McMurry wanted his fee based only on the 4½
million, not the other assets. He later tried to get Janette to
settle for $100,000.
The case went to court in May of 1988. This first case was
simply to decide whether or not Janette Kent was the beneficiary. I
thought the difficult issue would be to make Kent credible. She
was so distraught that she could not be responsive to
questions. I never met anyone more frustrating to work
with in my life. She was very naïve and idealistic,
spoiled and indulged by Kettleberg.
"You've got to do, Janette, whatever McMurry says in that
courtroom," I said over and over again.
"Gary, I've lost control of Janette. I befriended her and
she doesn't pay any attention to what I'm saying any more. I
don't know that I can control her. That's one thing that I
cannot guarantee," I told her attorney Gary McMurry.
"Oh, don't worry Roger," he said. "I'll take care of that,"
he assured me as he looked over his glasses with an all-knowing
smugness. And then I saw him with her in his conference room.
She was saying something and he, his fist clenched, responded
through gritted teeth,
"You SHUT UP or I..!" And another time, I spotted him walking
across the park with her, and he took his briefcase and slammed
it down.
"NO, damn it!" he said to her. He didn't have it under
control. At last I was able to assure him.
"Gary, she will answer questions. I've got her so she'll be
responsive." That was a big question mark, whether I could get
her to be responsive. At trial time, she got up on the stand and
was able to speak.
Gary Michaels, the architect, was what you would
call a star witness. Absolute integrity and good recall, a
professionally recognized and respected member of the
community. He said it all: that he'd met with Kettleberg, that
Kettleberg knew he was terminal, and that he had left everything to
Janette. The other witnesses were all solid. Milton Brown was a basket
case. After stammering through his testimony, he had to rest three
times before leaving the courtroom. The first time, leaning on
Kent's table, ashen-faced, he uttered in a weak, barely audible
voice,
"Hi Jenny."
All Brown's witnesses were totally discredited, and Janette
Kent won. She was awarded the entire estate, worth $35,000,000 at the
time, by Judge Crookham. Personal representative Carolyn Brune
filed an appeal.
Judge Crookham had a basic integrity to him. It would have been
easy for him to rule against Kent. He went on to become
Attorney General of the state of Oregon for awhile. I
believe he was appointed when someone went on to the Supreme
Court. I think when he got down there and found out how corrupt it
was, he just finished the term and retired. We tried to
get him involved as attorney general to prosecute the case, but
he wouldn't do it.
When Janette Kent was awarded the entire estate, all of a
sudden her attorney, Gary McMurry, changed his tune. Originally,
he didn't want to put any money into it and didn't want his fee
based on any of the assets.
"Oh no, I'm entitled to 40% of everything," he now says. But
before we won, he tried to get her to settle for $100,000! He
then became hostile to me. In September of 1988, right after we
won the case and McMurry turned on me, we hired attorney
Norman Lindstedt
There were two documents which Judge Crookham signed.
One was the Constructive Trust, which he placed on all the properties.
The other was a Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, a
separate document. We had the one creating the constructive
trust. We were not given a copy of the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law.
"...to turn it over, forthwith." was the wording in that
missing document requiring Carolyn Brune and Milton Brown
to release the estate to Janette Kent.
"Well, you've just been declared the beneficiary of whatever is
left of Kettleberg's estate." This is what they told Janette Kent.
The Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law ordering Brune to
turn the estate over to Janette "forthwith" didn't turn up
until Jack Salter found it six years later.
CHAPTER TWO
I thought our problems were over. Milton Brown was a
licensed attorney who knew the law. The court imposed a constructive trust on
the Kettleberg estate assets. A constructive trust says that
anyone who holds those assets is a trustee. The only link to
ownership that Milton Brown had was possession. The assets
were in his sole possession. If you run into a store and scoop up
some merchandise, to everyone else you have ownership because
you have possession of it. But to the store owner, you have only
possession. Legally, you have no ownership rights or interest.
And that's the position that Brown created for himself.
Brown had petitioned the court to appoint his secretary, Carolyn
Brune, as the personal representative of the estate. Brown
then had Carolyn Brune give him a limited special power of
attorney. By virtue of having the personal representative of
the estate give him power of attorney, he incurred a fiduciary
duty toward the beneficiary of the estate, i.e., Janette Kent.
When the court imposed a constructive trust on those
assets, he became a trustee because he was holding those assets.
Because he had an attorney/client relationship with the estate
and was a trustee of its assets, I thought he had no way to
get around that responsibility. He didn't get around it. He just corrupted the
system. As a trustee of the assets, he had a fiducial duty
toward the beneficiary, so he set about to make himself the
beneficiary. Brown was controlling absolutely everything. He had
a fiduciary duty to Janette Kent, and it was his duty to act in her
best interests. If there was a conflict of interest—such as
trying to get stock that was hers—then in a lawsuit, he could not serve
as attorney for her estate because he had an obvious conflict.
This is what is so frustrating for me; it's hard for me to
believe. but it's a fact. The rule of law, to which they all
give lip service, does not apply in our system. They do
whatever they want to do. You file your documents and do whatever.
They will say whatever in adversary proceedings, and going into
the court you will make a legal argument. You will not allude
to the lack of integrity of the judge if you're out there
practicing because you are a part of the system. If you attack
the judge, he's going to turn you in to the Bar, and they're
going to put a thunderbolt through you, as they did to me. Most
lawyers are intimidated by the Bar. So they come into court and
argue some abstract legal principle.
"I'm entitled to it," the principle would affirm. Whatever the
principle happens to be, it's an abstract legal principle!
"He was born there. The law recognizes thus and such." They
make these legal arguments based on some abstract set of facts.
The real facts in the case are never presented because the
attorneys, the parties that are framing the issue that's being
discussed in the courtroom, do not state the real facts. People
do not realize that. Compound that with the fact that the
judge and the attorney on the other side have already gotten
together, and all the attorneys have gotten together. They've
already decided the outcome before you ever even enter the
courtroom. It is simply a show trial. There is no genuine
litigation going on. The judge has already decided what the
facts are and what the conclusion is going to be.
Three months after Janette Kent won her case, the Bar filed a
complaint against me. Once she started fighting in court, the Bar
Association started disbarring me. I was being run through the
disbarment proceedings while I was helping Kent. Every time I
went any place, I was catching flack.
"Well, you've got trouble with the Bar don't you, Weidner?"
Absolutely groundless charges were filed in September,
1988, claiming that I had entered into a business deal with a
client. There was no evidence that party they were referring to was
a client at all. They went back to an event that had occurred
eight or nine years earlier. I had facilitated a business transaction with
a fellow by the name of George Milges. I knew George. I'd worked
in the fire department with him. He was an investor.
"If you ever have anything that looks good let me know," he
had said. So I told him about this.
"We have a business in which people want to invest," I told
him.
"Well, I will loan." He dictated the terms, and I drafted the
document. Another fellow was putting up property, and the
company was signing a note, so we had a secured loan. Well, the
company went upside down and the property depreciated in value,
or there were problems with it, and so Milges came back after
me because I was a part owner of the company. I had been given
the part ownership as a consideration for doing the legal work. I
didn't negotiate anything, I just drafted a note. I was not his
attorney.
So, the Bar paid off Milges $200,000 from my insurance policy
when he sued me civilly, claiming that I was his attorney. Doug
Hamilton, Milges' attorney, threatened me to go along with it
or be reported to the Oregon State Bar. The Bar, this good ol' boy group,
took $200,000 on my ticket and paid that off. When I was
represented by the Bar, of course, I was naïve as could be.
"Well, you have to go along with whatever we say," they said
to me. And so they paid off Milges on my policy. My premiums
then skyrocketed to around $15,000 a year because of the
surcharge for paying off that claim.
It had taken three-to-five years for that incident to get settled,
but the payoffs had been completed two or three years earlier. The
Bar then decided to go back and use that incident. Now they were
going to disbar me on the same case on which they paid off. I
knew what they were thinking.
"My god, Weidner's out there! We've got to get rid of him!"
In December, 1988, three years after Kettleberg's death and
after Kent had won, Carolyn Brune, Milton Brown's secretary and
the personal representative for the Kettleberg estate, filed a
complaint against Milton Brown for an accounting. To cover the fraud,
they had to have a complaint showing that she was
doing something to try to recover the misappropriated funds. The
scheme was to sue Brown and then settle in Brown's favor. It
was a very lightweight complaint. This is what they do. They
keep control of the assets, control of the proceedings, and
force you to go through all this made-up litigation. If you
go down to the courthouse today, you'll see probably 10 to15 feet
of files that have accumulated in this case to protect the
theft. Such is the enormity of it.
I'd gone through a series of attorneys before getting to
Norman Lindstedt. I knew Brown was a crook, but I didn't know
that Norman Lindstedt was also a crook, or I would never have hired
him. Lindstedt tries to play this accommodating sort of
pleasant guy. He is treacherous because he can appear so
proper. He goes to church. He's well-groomed, about 5 foot 9,
silver hair, mindful of his physical appearance and
maintains a big ego. He is dangerous because he feigns
propriety. The vicious hypocrisy of the man! He had his client
Janette Kent by the throat and was throttling her so he can
steal a half million dollars. That's what he ended up taking
out of that estate, plus paying the Bar Association another 40
or 50 thousand dollars to defend himself against us. We were
trying to force him to comply with the rule of law. I realized
that we were having difficulty getting any attorney to become
involved, particularly after Lindstedt got involved. Somehow, they
all knew the fix was in.
Carolyn Brune appealed the decision from 1988, and it
would be a year until that case would be heard—in September of
1989. During that interim it was agreed that Janette Kent's attorney,
Norman Lindstedt, would be named co-personal representative. At the
time, we thought he was on our side, working with us. He advised us
concerning possible action or inaction of the courts, since it was on
appeal. He was oh, so deftly leading us right down the primrose path. So
Janette agreed to his appointment as co-personal representative
of the estate and signed an agreement with Lindstedt that he
could not settle without her consent.
In March or April of 1989, attorney Ken Renner, from one of
the big law firms downtown, took my deposition for the Bar.
Afterwards, we got on the elevator together.
"I'll never do one of these again!" he said as he banged his
fist on the wall inside. He knew that I was being set up, that
he was just a hired gun.
The Bar complaint was heard at the trial panel level in June
of 1989. They had no evidence. At the trial panel level, the
first of two levels, if you are going through a disbarment or
disciplinary action, you get three judges. Two are attorneys, and
the third is someone from the community. They'll go out and get
a teacher or some other respectable type to make it look like it's
fair. If they recommend more than a six-month suspension, you can
appeal that to the Supreme Court. In my case, they recommended a
three-year suspension, insuring an automatic review by the Supreme
Court. Martha Hicks, a politically-correct, feminist yuppie, was prosecuting.
Martha Hicks was your stereotypical, professional feminist bureaucrat.
Hair a little bit below her ears, tight small facial features, plain looking,
neither attractive nor an unattractive woman. She's as treacherous as
they come. She would prosecute her mother. She'd prosecute Mother Teresa if
she was told to. Just absolutely, totally amoral.
Carolyn Brune's appeal was heard in September of 1989. It
was the personal representative's appeal of Judge Crookham's
ruling. In a de novo review, the Court of Appeals found for Kent.
Janette Kent was again awarded the entire estate as the sole heiress.
Carolyn Brune's attorney was Michael Gentry. If Gentry were a
dog he'd be a poodle. He affects a kind of choir boy presence.
He makes a good appearance, and he's bright. He's
very glib and deft at putting forth his legal position. But
he's absolutely as corrupt as they come because knowing
that all of this thievery's going on, he has been actively
participating in it and protecting it.
Norman Lindstedt was Janette's attorney. Judge Mary Dietz
and two other judges sat on the three-judge panel in the Court of Appeals.
Mary Dietz just looks like a nondescript middle-aged attorney
to me. There's nothing unusual about her. They upheld Crookham
and ruled for Kent. When we attended the appeal, we were still
unaware of that document, the Findings of Fact and Conclusions
of Law, which ordered them to turn over the estate "forthwith."
After it was affirmed on appeal that Janette was the sole
beneficiary of the Kettleberg estate, suddenly there was
a 180 degree turn by everyone. I was being attacked, verbally.
All the attorneys were hostile to me. Behind my back, Lindstedt
was saying that I was crazy, that I was off my rocker. I went
to probably 10 or 15 attorneys, and some became involved.
"Oh yeah, we're with you Roger." And then, all of a sudden,
they were trying to shut me down.
"He's got some trouble with the Bar," they were telling
Kent. They started this whispering campaign to try to discredit
me.
When Carolyn Brune filed the complaint against Milton Brown,
we wanted Lindstedt to amend it to include a racketeering
complaint and add Janette as party plaintiff. Brune's complaint
against Brown was only a ploy. She had been on Brown's
payroll for at least 6 months
after Kettleberg died. Although she no longer worked openly for
Milton Brown, in reality she did because she was being
paid by the estate, and Brown had control of the income it
generated. As personal representative, she picked up two-
or three-hundred thousand dollars from that estate
"I do not have the authority to bring a racketeering
complaint against Milton Brown," Lindstedt informed us. "I have
no authority to do that."
In 1989, after the appeal was won, I started going through
all the records. I went down to Michael Gentry's office, and he let me
look at them. When I mentioned that to Lindstedt, he was
surprised that Gentry would let me see the records. He got this very
perplexed look on his face.
"He DID?" It had not yet clicked in my head that they were
all in this together. I had taken video depositions of the
investigators that had been working for Kent. It was
devastating to the other side. I wanted Lindstedt to look at
those video depositions. He lost the set I gave him, and on the
next set, something broke.
"Well now, Roger, I agreed with Brune we won't be taking
any of these documents home," Lindstedt said. He was trying to
intimidate me, not directly, not violently, but he was trying
to make it uncomfortable for me.
"Don't come in here and order my help around," he'd say. I
hadn't been. He was trying to create issues and was not
pursuing Brown. He was talking settlement with him. Based on
what he was saying about the properties, it was apparent he
had no knowledge of the extent of the fraud. In fact, one of
Helen Solem's documents mentions a telephone conversation with
Lindstedt, in which he was stunned when she told him Brown was
skimming 25- or 30-thousand dollars a month from just one of
those properties.
"...a MONTH?" he had said. He was trying to seal this thing
up. I now know that he and Brown had entered into three secret
agreements.
Between September of 1989 and June of 1990, Brown started
producing documents that were all obviously forged. There were
four different buy/sell agreements, eight or nine corporate minutes, and a
note for a million dollars—14 documents in all. Kettleberg's
signature had been forged on all 14 of them. It was definitely
the same hand wrote them all. They were laughable forgeries,
except for one, which was quite well done. It gave me some
concern when I first saw it. Right away, we were challenging
them. Dorothy Layman, who looks like a fifty-year-old office
secretary, and another woman were the handwriting
experts.
I became aware by October of 1989 that Lindstedt had been
turned by Brown. When I realized he was fighting us, I filed
a petition to remove him as personal representative. We were
fighting early on, when he said he was going to settle with
Carolyn Brune and release her bond. As soon as he said he was
going to settle, we started pushing him.
"Lindstedt, maybe you better resign," being nice at first
but then ratcheting it up. At one time, he said that he wanted
to resign as soon as possible.
"Please draw up the papers," he said to attorney Joe Rieke.
But then he wouldn't resign. He kept saying he would, but he didn't.
In late 1989, October or November, when he announced he was
going to settle with Carolyn Brune in March of 1990, we
demanded that he resign.
"If you do not resign, Lindstedt, we are going to file a
racketeering complaint against you in federal court."
Attorney Nick Albrecht was hired. Nick Albrecht is 250
pounds or so, 5 foot 10 or 11. He likes German military
instruments of war and looks like a dissipated German Count.
Albrecht had worked for Milton Brown for a long time, so he knew the
insides of Brown. He took a long time shaking the label that
he'd worked for Brown. When he went into court, he became
intimidated. I didn't trust him either. When you hire them, they
always want money, and as soon as they get the money they go to
sleep on you. From the first, I got a video camera in there to
make sure that, if Lindstedt did not resign, Albrecht would file
a racketeering complaint against him.
I had Janette Kent file a racketeering complaint in federal court
against Lindstedt and Brown. As soon as Lindstedt got wind of
that, he amended Carolyn Brune's suit to include a racketeering
complaint listing all of Brown's fraud. He filed that in early
1990. Later, he called and said he wanted to add Janette as a
party plaintiff, and we agreed. He went into Ancer Haggerty's court
and filed a petition to have her added, saying that she was an
indispensable party and must be added. Haggerty agreed. As soon
as Judge Haggerty agreed, Lindstedt went into Judge Don Londer's
court in March of 1990 and filed a motion to dismiss the
complaint with leave to refile within a year, saying that the judge
would not allow a set-over because there had been a new party
added. There was no alternative but to dismiss.
My Supreme Court disbarment trial was also scheduled, at
first, in March, for the same time that we had the hearing
before Judge Londer, who was trying to dismiss the complaint
that had been filed against Brown by his secretary, Carolyn
Brune. Janette and I went into Londer's court and challenged
that vigorously, saying we were prepared to go to trial. Londer
denied the motion to dismiss. So the case was on. Then we went
back into Haggerty's court to have Haggerty sign the order that
he'd entered. He'd said that Kent could be added, but he never signed
it. So we prepared the order for him to sign making her a party
so Lindstedt could not settle without her signature. Lindstedt then
came into the court and argued that she could not be added—exactly
the opposite of what he had previously argued—and
Haggerty went along with it. Haggerty had gone both ways. I
don't know if he ever signed either one of those. Might have
signed the second one.
The basic premise of the suit, what was it designed to do,
was to create litigation. Brune was showing that she was suing
Milton Brown. She claimed that there was a buy/sell
agreement between Kettleberg and Brown, which there was not.
The document had been forged. She said it was a valid document but
that Brown had done something wrong: he didn't account for his
own assets.
"You're going to have to pursue this to include the assets
of Milton Brown," said the judge. It was a made-up kind of a
complaint. They were just creating litigation so you'd have to
come in and plead your case. It gave the judge the opportunity
to tell you, "No." This is how they do it. They just made up
this claim that Kent had only been "declared" the beneficiary.
Judge Lee Johnson referred to her as the "residual legatee,"
meaning that she was just entitled to what was going to be left of
the estate once all the attorneys were paid, which of course was
going to leave her with nothing. Brown was the author of all this. Judge
Crookham had already ordered the properties be turned over to
Janette.
I began gathering groups of people to start coming into
court with me in June of 1990. The Bar Association decided to
convene the Supreme Court for my disbarment trial at the
Lewis and Clark Law School, in front of 300 students, to
maximize my embarrassment. There would be no back-up facility,
and no back-up recording. I wanted witnesses. I prepared a
motion for an in camera hearing and filed it at the last
minute to throw them off. An in camera hearing is a
hearing in chambers with only the judges. I knew most of them, and
I intended to confront them.
"Listen, goddamnit judge, I'm going to make a record out
there, and even if you don't want to hear it, I'm going to do it! You
understand that?" That's what you do in the backroom.
"This bullshit is gonna stop out there. This is a sham." You
go after the judge. Everything in the courtroom goes on the
record. In camera, you talk to him off the record. The judge can
threaten you too, but not when you're doing what I'm doing.
"We're not going to hear this," he may say.
Before court convened, as I stood outside talking with my
supporters, a court clerk came up to me with a note written on
a little green napkin.
"Tell the parties and Weidner," it said, "that the motion
has been denied." This was a formal hearing, and the judge was
sending me napkins, outside the courtroom, telling me that a motion
has been denied.
"Who gave this to you?" I asked.
"Judge Ed Peterson."
Ed Peterson's very bright. He was the Chief Justice of the
Oregon Supreme Court and president of the Chief Justice
Association of the United States. So, there's nothing wrong
with his legal ability. The unfortunate part is, he's crooked. But
he makes a very good impression. He can be very charming and
gracious. Peterson was in on this early on. He's a former
partner in the Tooze & Marshall firm. It used to be Tooze,
Kerr & Peterson. He has the same kind of treacherousness as
Norman Lindstedt, though he's probably a brighter attorney than
Lindstedt.
"I do not want to hear any kind of response other than on
the record, in the courtroom," I said. Another clerk came up a
second time and I told her the same thing. I communicated to
the court reporter that I definitely wanted a copy of the
transcript of the proceedings. When Peterson entered the
courtroom and sat down, he leaned over the edge of the bench and
spoke quietly.
"Mr. Weidner, your motion has been denied." The clerks told
him that I would not accept this note on a napkin.
Just before the hearing, when we were walking in, I noticed
Justice Fadely looking at me. I saw this glint in his eyes,
almost like a gleam, and this strange look. He was looking at
me because he knew what I was doing. Fadely was a former state
senator. Savvy, politically. Dick Unis, one of the 7-member
panel, whom I knew fairly well as a trial court judge, had this
funny look on his face, too. He's about 5 foot 10, a very
athletic guy, bald on top, very high intellect, extremely
knowledgeable about law systems. One of the best trial judges
in the state of Oregon. He could rank above everyone else
because he was so knowledgeable. In the past, I had tried
several cases in front of him. It was a pleasure because you
weren't reacting to some thick-headed judge sitting there. He
was way ahead of you. He had gotten a copy of this motion for an
in camera hearing he realized this was a political
prosecution. He resigned from the Supreme Court shortly
thereafter. Chief Justice Ed Peterson left also. Fadely was
removed.
This time, I got a chance to defend myself. They didn't check
the facts. There was no evidence at all. One of my supporters
told me he saw the court clerk intentionally foul the tape of
the proceedings. But the law school was videotaping as a
student activity. I went up during the lunch break and sat down
beside that cameraman.
"Are you going to be here?" I asked. "I want to make sure
that nothing happens to this film." While I was sitting there
Ed Peterson entered the room and eyed me, obviously perceiving
what I was doing. He knew this was a political prosecution and
that I understood what was happening. Court reconvened, and I
made my final arguments.
"There is no evidence that I was George Milges's attorney. This is a
totally political prosecution. There is no basis for it at all.
The only reason for it is because I'm working on that
Kettleberg case." They had no evidence whatsoever that I had an
attorney/client relationship.
"No misconduct," the Supreme Court ruled after the hearing,
and the charges were dismissed.
The basic dynamic that is in place in the system is a
complete corruption of the judicial process. You do not have a
constitutional government. You have a police state in place,
with state-appointed, government-appointed magistrates in
there. If they are against the system they are jettisoned out,
even if they're on the Supreme Court, like Fadely. They're
jettisoned out of the system and attacked. Fadely was a former
Supreme Court justice of the Oregon Supreme Court. He was there
at my first disbarment trial. Fadely came up to me a few years
later at a press conference, after he had been removed from the
Supreme Court.
"Roger, I didn't vote with them to disbar you," he said. He
was jettisoned off the Supreme Court because he wasn't going
along with them. Ostensibly, it was for pressuring an aide for
sex. He was accused of having an affair with one of the gals
that worked there. She said he was using his office to pressure
her. Sexual harassment. But that would have been fine had he
cooperated with the good ol' boy network. I didn't realize the
depth of that network until I got into this. In the brothel
down there, you're paying your dues and you're protecting the
system. You can do anything you want. You can murder, anything.
I made application with the Bar Association to get back on
active status. Once we hit on that case and won it, I
thought I wouldn't have to go back to work. But then it started
dragging out, and although we'd won the case, we couldn't gain
access to the assets. I wanted to get back on active status
before they succeeded in disbarring me.
"Well, you're going to have to submit to a psychiatric
examination."
"For what reason?" I asked.
"Well, there's been a report," said the fellow who worked
for the Bar, Jeff Shapiro was his name. I was insistent and he
became very perplexed with me.
"Who's putting up this requirement?" I asked.
"The board of governors," he responded.
At the time, Bill Crow was the President of the Oregon State
Bar. I knew him. He'd been a teacher of mine in law school, so I
called him. He was very cordial.
"Who required this? On what basis are they requiring this
referral?" I asked.
"Martha Hicks said they were concerned about your mental
stability," he replied. Of course, it was actually because I
was involved in the Kettleberg case. I had started clamoring
about this corruption. I was making these wild charges about
judges being corrupt.
"Oh! You must be nuts!"
I had to see a doctor to be reinstated as an active Bar
member, so I went to the office of the doctor in Cedar Mills
for the examination.
"Your appointment is not scheduled for today, Mr. Weidner,"
the receptionist purred. "You're not to come in today. You're
to come in tomorrow."
I returned the next day. Again, she said it was the wrong
day. I thought she was trying to antagonize me. I thought it
was intentional.
"Well, I was told today and I want to know why. Let me see
that book," I said, as I reached across the counter for her
appointment book.
"You can't see this book!" she cried, retreating with the
book. I thought they were trying to get me agitated so I would
cork in their office. They try to provoke you so they can write
up a report.
"Weidner was in here ranting and raving."
That doctor wouldn't see me anymore.
CHAPTER THREE
The objection hearings to the final accounting of Personal
Representative Carolyn Brune started right after that in Judge
Lee Johnson's court. Lee Johnson is the probate judge, the
former Attorney General of the state of Oregon and a former
Court of Appeals judge, so he has this vanity. He's crooked,
incompetent, he's a drunk, he is mindless, a despicable human
being. Johnson is probably 5 foot 10, weighs about 250 pounds,
very dissipated, pot-bellied, heavy jowly face. He's in with
the money elite. He is shamelessly and horribly corrupt. I
would give him zero in every category. Minus, if you could put
a minus. He has no memory. His brain's been pickled by alcohol.
The people that worked for him said that he'd have booze on the
bench. He has no intelligence. He's become so corrupted that's
it's just a matter of putting on a pretense.
When a person submits a final accounting the other side can
object and there were strenuous objections. We wanted to expand
those hearings to include the claim against Brown.
"I'm not going to hear anything against Brown." Judge
Johnson said that 16 times.
There was a series of 8 to 10 hearings beginning in June,
1990 and continuing to February, 1991. We were moving to block
those hearings because we had filed an action against Milton
Brown that was scheduled to be heard in November of 1990. Two
hearings and we could settle it all, once we had our action. We
planned to file a motion then move for Summary Judgment on it
and all the facts that we had developed about the forgery and
the fraud. No fact that we ever put up was ever disputed. It
was always some procedural thing.
Milton Brown is in possession of trust assets. This is what
people lose sight of. The judge imposed a Constructive Trust on
all these assets. Brown, by operation of law, is a trustee of
all Kettleberg assets that are in his possession. He also, on
his own, had his secretary give him a power of attorney as the
Personal Representative of the Kettleberg estate. When you
perpetrate that kind of a fraud on someone you have created a
liability.
Our racketeering complaint was just to implement Judge
Crookham's order, to take possession of all the assets. We did
not yet know about the order of Judge Crookham to turn over all
the assets "forthwith." But I knew that they were trust assets
as of the date of Kettleberg's death. We were asking that they
be turned over, that we be given possession of them because
they were Kent's properties. As of the date of Crookham's order
that property was hers. Milton Brown was Kettleberg's partner
so it was half his also but he has a duty to account for the
assets, for the property that he has in his possession.
Ordinarily, when you can't come to a settlement, the assets are
sold. They're liquidated. That's the remedy for that kind of
situation. He could buy her out. If it had gone as it should
have, all the properties would have been appraised and one
party given the opportunity to buy out the other party. You
mortgage them and pay off the other party. That's the way that
you resolve those kinds of situations. I was beginning to
realize that no matter what the evidence, because of the
corruption, we could not get them to obey the rule of law. We
could not get the judge to order him to do anything.
First there were the hearings on the objections to the final
account of Carolyn Brune. That stretched over 5 or 6 hearing
dates. She and Norman Lindstedt were the Personal
Representatives of the estate. As Personal Representative she
makes an initial account of what the assets are, what she paid
out, then she submits a final account. She posts a performance
bond, which guarantees her service. She had posted a 3 million
dollar bond. That final account then is when the other side can
protest the final accounting and charge her if she has
embezzled or otherwise misused funds or assets. Following the
objections to the final account of Carolyn Brune were the 3 or
4 hearings on the Lindstedt/Brown settlement agreement Brown
had entered in. Lindstedt had signed an agreement with Brown to
sell him all the assets for a fraction of their value. But
Lindstedt had signed an agreement with Kent that he couldn't
sell the assets without her consent.
In the 10 hearings from June, 1990 until February, 1991,
Judge Johnson's behavior in court was threatening. I could see
what he was doing. He was restricting witness testimony. All
evidence that he didn't want to hear he would just ignore.
"I'm not going to hear that! You sit down and shut-up!" He
was running police-state courts. Johnson referred to Janette as
a residual legatee. That means that after everything is paid
you get whatever is left. That was not in compliance with Judge
Crookham's order but that's how Johnson was characterizing it,
forcing her through all this new litigation against Brown. This
was all a make-up pretense to allow a litigation so they could
cut Kent out. Brown had hooked enough people and he'd hooked
the system. When Brown and his parties were put on the stand
Johnson protected them by sustaining objections to any
questions they were asked.
I spoke at one of the hearings, July 26th of 1990, when I
was called as a witness. We were talking about the gross
under-valuation of these assets by Brune in her account. I was
called to testify as to the actual value of these assets. This
was about properties. I had been in real estate development and
I'd done these syndications so I was knowledgeable. Johnson
summarily ruled that I was incompetent.
"Well, I'm not incompetent," I said.
"Mr. Weidner!!" he shouted.
"I am not incompetent," I replied.
"Well I'm ruling, Mr. Weidner, that you are incompetent to
enter any opinion about these properties."
"Well I'm not incompetent, I'm-"
"MISter WEIDner. I'll have you taken out of here!"
"Well, I'm going to make an offer of proof, right here and
now," I said. "I'm going to be making an offer of proof in this
courtroom."
Nick Albrecht was standing at the counsel table, his eyes
just like saucers, watching this go on. I could see that Judge
Lee Johnson and attorneys Norman Lindstedt and Michael Gentry
were simply running this through the system.
"I can impose sanctions on you Mr. Albrecht if I find your
client Janette Kent's claim is frivolous!"
He sat there seething while I made that offer of proof
concerning the actual value of those properties. That was the
first confrontation and his first act of open hostility toward
me. I thought that I would break through all the opposition I
was encountering by putting on this offer of proof.
Around November of 1990, during the hearings concerning the
final accounting of Carolyn Brune, Norman Lindstedt,
co-personal representative of the estate and Janette Kent's
attorney, was trying to settle with Brune for $11,000, the
improprieties in which she had engaged. It was just a set-up
deal. Brune created a situation where it could be claimed that
she entered into some improprieties concerning the estate. She
had allowed Kettleberg's sister and niece to take the car and
she sold off some of the assets, little ones, just to make
something to have this miniscule situation there. That was a
breach of her duty so she agreed to pay 11 thousand dollars to
the estate. It was just a pretense. She was being penalized.
They were surcharging, fining her. That was the ruse that they
were using to have a hearing. While she was settling for 11
grand Brown had actually been taking much much more than that
out of all of this. Milton Brown was skimming huge sums of
money. The properties are all still there. He's still
collecting the rents as he always has. All that there's been is
a little paper game, a little charade in a courtroom with Judge
Lee Johnson, Norman Lindstedt, Milton Brown, Carolyn Brune and
Michael Gentry, all just saying empty words to achieve an
objective. We were, of course, challenging her accounting. They
had to have a hearing on the settlement. They couldn't have it
against Brown so they used Carolyn Brune. They listed the
assets as being worth a million and a half dollars and Brown
then was going to buy those assets-Kettleberg's half. They
grossly underestimated and put the assets at just a fraction of
their worth, pennies on the dollar. That's how they were going
to run this thing through. That hearing then, after it had
passed, all subsequent judges said the settlement hearing with
Carolyn Brune was a full and complete hearing of all these
issues. I was trying to figure out some way to put the brakes
on this judicial thievery.
"I'm warning you Lindstedt," I said threateningly, "get out
of this case."
"Now Roger, don't..." my supporters were getting on me for
getting on him. We were doing the probate, some further
proceedings, and Lindstedt, who was supposed to be representing
Janette but was saying everything in favor of Brown, Lindstedt
was up at the counsel table speaking, openly lying.
"I tried to bifurcate this. I wanted to bifurcate this
hearing but Roger and Kent would not allow me to do that."
Bifurcate means to split into 2 parts the action that was
pending. Kent and I had been asking him to bifurcate and he had
agreed to do so, the action against Carolyn Brune and the
action against Milton Brown. Separate actions. One against the
Personal Representative for her final accounting and the other
against Milton Brown for converting the estate assets to
himself through forged buy/sell agreements. I was sitting as a
spectator listening to Lindstedt saying exactly the opposite of
what we had agreed. The proceedings had reached a point at
which they were going to sell all the assets to Brown for a
fraction of their value. He was absolutely lying. Everything he
said was to protect Brown. I couldn't stand it. Our case was
going down the tube so I stood up.
"He's lying. Every word that's coming out of his mouth is a
lie!"
"Mr. Weidner! Guards!! Take him out of here!" When I stood
up I anticipated Judge Johnson would have me removed from the
courtroom. The guards took me out of the courtroom instantly.
They didn't arrest me, they just removed me. That was the first
time I was physically taken out of the courtroom. This
opposition was building.
Lindstedt had signed a settlement agreement with Brown. But
Lindstedt was Janette Kent's attorney and had signed an
agreement with Kent which stated that he could not settle
without her consent. The question was, did Lindstedt have the
authority to settle and did Judge Johnson have the authority to
set aside the settlement agreement. The agreement itself says
that it's subject to court approval.
We hired attorney Mike Morris who subpoenaed Milton Brown
into court and subpoenaed his records. Mike Morris is 5 foot
10, slight build, a bright attorney. He has a nervous,
rapid-talking demeanor about him. He seems embarrassed about
what he got into, but not much backbone to do anything about
it. Brown came into court and didn't bring any records and he
was there without his attorney. Lindstedt then came in and said
that he had settled with Brown. Lindstedt was trying to settle
and sell all these assets to Brown for 2.1 million dollars. I
found an investor named Bob Jarvis. He used to own Jarvis Jeep
here in Portland and he said that he would loan Janette 2.1
million if she could be named personal representative. We were
fighting them on that.
"I want Milton Brown to submit the records." said Mike
Morris. Brown stood up.
"That wouldn't be fair! I don't have my attorney here to
defend me!" This is Milton Brown in the courtroom saying this.
Milton Brown IS an attorney.
"Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to make Brown produce any
documents. I don't think I have the authority to set aside this
settlement," says Judge Johnson. Don't try to make any logic
out of it. They were just putting on the pretense of judicial
proceedings.
"But Mr. Lindstedt has signed an agreement with Kent saying
he cannot settle without her consent," said Morris.
"Well, it's too late now. It's done, the settlement is
signed and I have no authority to set it aside," said Judge
Johnson.
"Well, it says right here judge it's subject to court
approval," Morris said and Johnson just gave him a blank look.
We'd caught him flat-footed. He didn't have a comeback.
"Well, ok, we'll have a hearing to see if I have the
authority to set this aside." It was so obvious that Judge
Johnson was just using this as a pretense to get out from under
the pressure. Kent had been awarded the estate. These were her
properties. Judge Crookham had ordered Brune to ".turn them
over forthwith." After all this threatening that was going on
during these hearings, Johnson decided to have a hearing to
determine whether or not he had the authority to set aside the
settlement agreement that Lindstedt had entered into with
Brown. That was just a pretense. The agreement itself said it
was subject to court approval so he had an absolute right to
set aside something that was subject to his approval! It was
just a charade. It's just words stated to make up an issue, to
talk about something other than the facts in the case.
What we didn't know was that there were 3 other secret
agreements that Lindstedt and Brown had signed together. Brown
was trying to hush that up and get this settlement through
because he had Johnson wired. WIRED! We were fighting trying to
keep that from happening. Those secret agreements were found in
1993 or 1994 by Jack Salter after the trials and hearings were
over. Lindstedt was supposedly representing Janette but he
signed these secret agreements with Brown that Brown would pay
him 1½ million dollars for all the assets of the estate.
In consideration for that, if Brown had to defend himself
against Kent because we were coming after him, then Lindstedt
had to agree to reimburse Brown for those expenses and attorney
fees out of the 1.5 million. This was part of one of the secret
agreements they signed that didn't turn up until Jack Salter
found it a few years later. That was the core of the agreement,
the payment of this certain sum of money, virtually nothing in
comparison to the value of the properties. Brown was going to
get it all back anyway for his legal expenses. Lindstedt was
hired and legally bound to fight for Kent but he was working
for Brown. Lindstedt was seen huddling with Milton Brown in
court. Huddling with him! After he'd filed a racketeering
complaint against him! Incredible.
One of the assets that Brown got back in the deal was a note
he had previously signed to the estate for a million dollars
that he owed Kettleberg, so he's off the hook to pay that
million dollars. Money came in on these different checks from
Brown and here's where it went.
500 thousand dollars went to Norman Lindstedt.
150 thousand dollars went to the Bar Association's
Professional Liability Fund to pay the attorneys who were
defending Norman Lindstedt.
300 thousand dollars went to Michael Gentry, the attorney
for Carolyn Brune.
200 thousand dollars went to Carolyn Brune for her fees for
being Personal Representative.
All the cash that came in, every bit of it, went to those
people who were fighting Janette Kent tooth and nail to protect
Brown-working for Brown-who were supposed to be working for
Kent! All of them! Carolyn Brune has a fiduciary duty to the
beneficiary of that trust. Michael Gentry, the attorney for the
estate, has a legal responsibility to Kent. Norman Lindstedt
certainly has a responsibility to her. The estate had no cash,
just assets. It had these properties that it owned. Brown
picked up assets that are today worth 100 million dollars. They
have a market value of 50 million and the income that Brown
diverted from those assets is another 50 million.
All of a sudden, it's a fait accompli and we're saying
Lindstedt has no authority to sign that agreement, Johnson says
he has no authority to set it aside, it's an outrage and we're
pounding on the doors then.
In February, 1991, I sent out notices to people.
"Lindstedt, Brown and Johnson are trying to steal the
Kettleberg estate. Show up." This was going to be the showdown,
in that courtroom, February 19, 1991.
My father had been the Deputy Fire Chief in Portland for 10
years and as a young man I worked as a fireman for 12 years
while I attended college and law school. So, I sent out notices
to all these firemen and I had standing room only in the
courtroom that day, maybe 70 people there.
"Just fill up the jury box," I said, when the room was full.
There were 8 retired fire chiefs sitting in the jury box. It
was a very impressive group.
"Oh shit!" I heard Gentry say, when he came to the door and
saw the crowd.
I thought we were in a position to apply so much pressure
that they could not just run this steam roller over us, that
they would have to observe regular courtroom etiquette. When
Judge Johnson saw the crowd he wanted to take all the parties
back into his chambers.
"Janette do not go back there," I said, grabbing her arm.
"These are public hearings. We want this to go on in front of
this crowd." He had to have her back there because she was one
of the key parties.
Lindstedt, Gentry, Mike Morris, Greg Hartman and Nick
Albrecht were there. Morris, Hartman and Albrecht were
attorneys for Kent. Greg Hartman is about 6 feet tall, erect,
somewhat stiff, very good trial attorney, dark wavy hair,
mindful of his appearance, makes a good physical appearance and
he's talented. He was in one of the big firms downtown, Durham
& Bennett. It's now Durham & Hartman so he's a name
partner in there. But he knows this is going on and he's not
doing anything about it.
Janette's attorneys went in the back for a few minutes
without her, then returned. Because Kent would not go they had
to come back out into the courtroom. And then it was just like
a volcano erupting. When Judge Johnson began roaring Janette's
attorneys started brandishing their marshmallow swords.
"Before we proceed," Johnson said, "I want to tell everyone
here that I have observed Mr. Weidner's conduct during these
hearings and I find his conduct outrageous and unprofessional."
I was standing in the back.
"I'm in the courtroom," I said.
"I see you," he replied.
"Well, if you're going to attack me," I said, "I want to be
able to come up to the stand so I can testify truthfully."
"Well, you've attacked me Mr. Weidner and I'm going to
respond," he said.
"And every word of it is the truth," I said.
"Roger! Roger!" marshmallow sword Morris starts trying to
shut me down.
"Roger! No! Now."
"One more word out of you Weidner and I'll have you taken
out of here!"
"You've done that in the past when I tried to speak the
truth in this courtroom."
"Guards!!" Judge Johnson got up and shot through the back
door into his chambers. Henry Sirbaugh, one of my supporters,
told me later.
"Roger, I saw the guard pull a gun on you."
Henry's 6 foot tall and balding. He was the chief down at
the fire station during the years I worked there. His daughter
Marilyn was a classmate of mine. She was one of the nicest gals
I knew. Henry had size 14½ or 15 shoes. Whenever the
bell would hit, you wanted to make damn sure you weren't in
between Henry and his car. He would fly, and he'd run over
everyone. I was his driver for awhile. He's been friends of my
parents and he's shown up at court for me so, even though he
used to jump on me when I worked down there, I still have a
fondness for Henry because he does speak out about this
corruption and he is a straight arrow guy.
There was a hush in the courtroom. A quietness. Lindstedt
was standing at the counsel table and all the fire chiefs were
in the jury box.
"Now Lindstedt," I said, "tell these people to their faces
what you've been saying behind my back." Behind my back he'd
been saying that I was crazy, that I was off my rocker. They
started this whispering campaign to try to discredit me.
"He's got some trouble with the Bar." they were telling
Kent. He stood there silent.
"You're under arrest," the guard commanded, and off I went.
I couldn't believe they'd be stupid enough to arrest me,
because if they arrest me, they have to try me!
My supporters said Judge Johnson came back into the
courtroom and pointed at Janette.
"Do you agree with what Mr. Weidner did," he said, "because
I'll have you arrested too!" All those firemen gave a growl, an
audible grrrrrrr, and backed him down a little bit.
This encounter I was starting to have with Judge Lee Johnson
reached a crescendo when he ordered my arrest. I was taken into
custody and booked for contempt and held 2 or 3 days. The trial
was set for March of 1991 in Judge James Ellis' court. He was
presiding court judge at the time. James Ellis is a very
treacherous individual. He's close to 70, tall, thin, has kind
of a nervous, quick laugh. When I was in the District
Attorney's office in 1975 Judge Harlow Lennon expressed
concern.
"Roger, go in and monitor Judge Ellis. He's sending everyone
to jail." He was known to be heavy-handed Jim when it came to
divorce cases.
I asked for a jury trial but they said you don't get jury
trials for contempt of court. The courtroom was packed and I
brought a lot of witnesses. By this time Dal Ferry had become
involved. Dal was in his early 80's when I met him. He was 5
foot 8 or 9, graying hair, high forehead and looked like a
professor. He was putting out a paper called the Counterpoint.
I think it first started as a small paper, then became a
newspaper when he got involved. He had a tremendous heart
committed to fighting the corruption and speaking out against
it. He was very supportive, early on, getting other people
involved.
I was stunned when I turned around and saw Lindstedt
standing in the back. I had been confronting him for months
demanding that he resign and now he'd come to testify in my
prosecution. So, they called their witnesses, Lee Johnson and
Norman Lindstedt, to the stand.
"You're a judge and you were conducting your."
"Yes, I was."
"And Mr. Weidner."
"Yes, he was-he disrupted."
That's the types of questions they were asking so, when my
turn came to cross-examine, I started trying to impeach Johnson
by showing that he had no memory of the event, that he's a
contemptible corrupt judge. That's how you impeach. You ask
someone questions—where they were, what they observed, who
they observed—to force them to be precise.
"Well, where was I in the courtroom Judge Johnson when I
made that reply to you?" I asked.
"Well, I think you were sitting in the front, left of
center."
"I was standing in the back," I said. So he had no
recollection of this. I planned to go over it in detail,
turning up as many discrepancies in his testimony as I
could.
"Isn't it a fact." Ellis stopped me.
"The only questions you're going to be able to ask, Mr.
Weidner, are what happened in that courtroom. I'm not going to
allow you to retry the Kettleberg case in here." When he said
that, he shut me down. If I tried to go beyond that I would be
in contempt.
I called my witnesses, who described what they saw and
heard, affirming that I was just responding. As the hearing
continued and I tried to expose Lindstedt's duplicity and
treachery, back and forth objections were being sustained.
"Well," I said, "I have a right to cross-examine him. Let's
go in the backroom and talk about this."
"No, we're not going to do that Mr. Weidner. Ask your next
question," said Ellis. I wanted to go in the backroom and lay
it out for him in a nutshell.
"Listen. They forged this document, stole this property.This
is what's going on here judge. I want this all out on the
record." I would have been saying in the backroom what he would
not let me say on the record in the court. None of the
surrounding circumstances would he allow to be discussed. But
if you go in the back room and if you get the court reporter
back there too, you tell it to him straight. That's what they
were trying to prevent me from doing from the getgo.
"I have a right to cross-examine him," I said.
"Mr. Weidner, if you persist in this you're going to have
the same trouble with me that you had with Judge Johnson." He
was threatening to charge me with contempt if I insisted on
cross-examining.
"Well let's go in the backroom and talk about this judge," I
said.
"What's the maximum?" Ellis asked. It was 6 months in jail
and a $300 fine. BANG!! went the gavel. He couldn't say it fast
enough. So he sentenced me to 6 months in jail, a $300 fine,
and ordered that I was permanently banned from entering the
Multnomah County Courthouse unless I obtained court approval to
come in. I filed a Notice of Appeal and was out on an appeal
bond within a couple of days. This is a standard routine. You
just tell them you are going to file a notice and they release
you, pending the appeal. I didn't go to jail at that time but I
did serve, ultimately, 180 days, the entire 6-month sentence,
for contempt of court.
We kept on trying to go into presiding court and make a
record of the fact that we couldn't get our petition—to remove
Lindstedt—heard in the probate court. Don Londer was the
Presiding Court Judge.
Here in Portland, years ago, they used to have the Broadway
gang. The guys would go downtown and they'd turn their collars
up, grease their hair back, this kind of a cool act. Londer
reminded me of this—that he was once a Broadway gang guy and he
never got over it. He was pleasant but he was very stiff
because of what I was charging, very stand-offish. He was not
intellectual at all and he wasn't a really successful trial
attorney but he was in that little money clique. 5'8" or so,
full-faced, full-nosed, balding, he looked Eurasian, eyes like
Yeltzin. That Eurasian look is from the Tartars and the Asiatic
peoples that overran eastern Europe. They have that look, that
is, the leopard's eyes. When you hear about wolves in sheeps'
clothing, that's Londer. He put on the robe to dignify himself
and he would strut and come in with great pomp when he entered
the courtroom. He had this affected voice. Everything was an
affectation, an act.
When I ran the Consumer Fraud Department in Portland in 1975
and 1976 Londer was trying to become a pro temp judge so he
would be very nice. He'd go out of his way to be congenial when
he saw me because I was in the District Attorney's office and
viewed as having political clout. Later, when he got on the
bench, I had one case with him when he was acting a little
strange. He didn't rule for me but I didn't put 2 and 2
together. It wasn't a big deal. Londer became the Presiding
Court Judge and Johnson became the Probate Court Judge so that
any attempt by the victims to get their cases into court would
have to go through them. Those positions were assigned by Chief
Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, Ed Peterson.
Presiding Court is the court that's going on all the time.
They have what they call an ex parte time when, twice a day,
you can go into court and get on the record. In major populous
areas you have a Presiding Court Judge that handles all
preliminary matters and all case assignments. He is the
judicial director of the court activity. He assigns specific
cases to specific judges. Londer would just assign our cases
back to Judge Johnson or one of the other corrupt
Judges—Abraham, Ellis or Cinoceros—members of this little
cadre, this little gang that was running the court system. That
position of Presiding Court Judge is supposed to rotate every
year because it is so powerful. But Londer became the permanent
Presiding Court Judge in 1985 or 1986 and was there for 14
years or so. I was in front of him quite a few times. He was
Presiding Court Judge so I was trying to get in front of him.
When I would come in and try to make a record he would keep me
from speaking.
"These are MY courts!" says Londer. He was brazen enough to
say that, the inference being that he could do anything he
wanted, let anybody speak that he chose to let speak. I do not
see them as being his courts. That's a courtroom. He just
happens to be working there. He was doing this to try to chase
me off. We were pushing to get a hearing in the Probate Court
on our petition to remove Norman Lindstedt as the Personal
Representative of the Kettleberg estate. Johnson would not hold
the hearing and when I would come into the court to try to
speak he would threaten me with arrest. So, I started going
into Presiding Court with Janette and a crowd of people. I
wanted to make a record that I was being threatened with arrest
by Judge Lee Johnson for trying to go in and have this petition
heard on the record.
"You don't think I'm so hot either do you Weidner?" Londer
said when I walked into the court.
"You know Milton Brown."
"Oh, that was ye-e-a-ars ago." Later he came back in the
courtroom and made an announcement.
"I want everyone in this courtroom to know that I don't know
Milton Brown at all."
Because of the politics, the money and because he was
corrupt he became Presiding Court Judge and in that powerful
position he could protect Brown. He gained that position right
around the time that Brown wiped out Kettleberg and also
Kittelson.
Ray Kittelson was another partner of Milton Brown. He
developed Hazel Dell shopping center in Hazel Dell, Washington.
Brown put up the money for it as a private lender and Kittelson
did all the work. Brown was the money man and Kittelson was the
developer so Brown had control of the accounts. When it was
done, Brown forged some documents and foreclosed on the loan
that he had made to the partnership. By the foreclosure he then
took over the possession of it.
That's what Brown does. He gets control of the rents coming
in. The other partner, when he's developing his property, he
looks at what the property's worth and what's owed on it and
what the net worth is. That's what keeps him like a horse
chasing a carrot. He thinks he's going to get that carrot.
Brown holds that carrot out in front of that partner, he keeps
chasing that carrot and after the horse has done the activity
and created all the wealth Brown takes and eats the carrot.
When they went to court this Judge Herb Schwab, who was a
former Court of Appeals chief judge—according to Kittelson
Judge Schwab and Milton Brown just looked like 2 peas in a pod.
They were just like baby cubs schmoozing with each other while
they stripped Kittelson of that interest.
Now I was getting this violent reaction from Presiding Court
Judge Don Londer.
"Mr. Weidner!!"
"I'm just trying to make the record," I said and I started
speaking on the record.
"I'm warning you Weidner!"
"Well I'm just here to make a record judge that I can't be
heard in judge-"
"WEIDner!! I'm warning you! Report him to Judge Ellis," he
said to the District Attorney on one of these occasions in
November or December of 1991. I'd been sentenced by Ellis to 6
months in jail but there was an appeal pending. I was under
sentence and I had been ordered out of the courthouse except on
business. We went 6, 7, 8 times. Janette and I were trying to
get Judge Londer to act on the petition to remove Lindstedt. I
was trying to make a record, asking him to hear certain
matters.
"I have recused myself from hearing anything about the
Kettleberg case," said Judge Londer. "All those matters have
been assigned to Judge Gallagher."
"Well I want to bring up this petition," I said. "I want to
have this petition to remove Lindstedt heard."
"You can bring that up with Judge Gallagher," Londer
replied. "You can take anything up with him that you want." I
filed petitions and left copies with Gallagher and also with
Londer because I could see what Londer was doing. He was being
evasive and trying to throw me off. So, I went with a group
into Judge Gallagher's courtroom.
"I cannot hear any of these matters pertaining to the
probate," said Gallagher. "I was told by Judge Londer,
specifically, that I cannot hear these matters. You have to go
into Probate Court to get that petition heard."
"Well I can't go into Probate Court because Judge Johnson
will arrest me if I come and try to speak in his courtroom. And
Judge Londer has threatened to arrest me if I speak about this
case in his courtroom," I said. Gallagher was on the bench.
"Well he can't arrest me," he said. So, Gallagher went with
Janette and me down to Judge Londer's chambers. When we first
showed up there Londer was in chambers, we were out in the
courtroom and Gallagher was kinda standing in the door. Janette
was going to go in and talk to Judge Londer and Gallagher just
exploded.
"You can't go in there! You go back and sit down right now!"
he hissed at Janette Kent. We then were sitting down in
Presiding Court and the door into Londer's chambers was swung
about halfway open so I could see between the door and the
doorjam. I saw Gallagher bent over whispering in Judge Londer's
ear, figuring out what they were going to do. Those judges are
not supposed to confer at all. They are supposed to be totally
autonomous but this is how brazen they were.
Sometimes Ellis would be Presiding Court Judge so it wasn't
Londer all the time. Ellis is nervous and he would track me.
Once the security gal was standing next to me and I heard Jim
Ellis' voice on her radio.
"He's in the courtroom and he has a camera." When he sees me
coming he runs across the street. I've confronted him in the
elevators.
"People, this is Jim Ellis. He's as corrupt as they
come."
On one occasion I was taken through the courtroom and the
clerk's office was right there. There were these double doors
and I could see through the office door and the second door was
into the chambers. Both doors were standing open and I could
see Londer in there, "kkk, kkk, kkk." and Ellis was in there
with him, snickering like little kids in the judges' chambers
after sentencing me to jail.
"Mr. Weidner I'm warning you! I'm not." Londer
threatened.
"I have an absolute right to-"
"Mr. Weidner!!"
"-make a record in this courtroom-"
"MISter WEIDner! GUARDS!!" and they would come and grab me.
On one occasion the guards arrested me in the courtroom and
started to remove me.
"I'm going to give you one more chance Weidner," and the
guards released me. I was not arrested that day.
One time when I went in with one of these crowds there was
Londer peeking out of the chambers doors. The door would open
and I'd just see an eyeball coming around the edge of the
door.
On another occasion the door was open and Londer was
standing in his chambers looking out to me standing out there
in the courtroom. He nodded to me. I've known him for a long
time and I nodded back. Now and then he'd come out of the court
house and see me outside. I saw him coming out of the justice
center walking up the street one day.
"Hi Roger," he acted friendly, pretending like this wasn't
happening. He recused himself shortly after he started doing
this. He wouldn't hear it.
Londer died a few years ago, way Way WAY too late. I was
going to go to his funeral just to make sure it was him. I
wanted to go get a backhoe and deepen his grave by about 50
feet to make damn sure he didn't come out of there because,
deep down, they're really ok. He's probably one of the best
arguments for abortion that I can think of.
CHAPTER FOUR
In late 1991, early 1992 we went into federal court with the
racketeering complaint against Lindstedt and Brown. We had
early on requested that Lindstedt amend this belated lawsuit
that Carolyn Brune had filed against Brown in September/October
of 1988 after Kent won. We wanted Lindstedt to amend that
complaint to include a racketeering complaint against Brown.
Because that case was 3 years old, it was of long standing and
was due to go to trial soon. There had been no action on it. It
was cover for her. That was the whole purpose of it, the reason
it was filed.
"I have no authority to amend the complaint to include a
racketeering complaint against Brown," Lindstedt said. Later on
we threatened him.
"Resign or be named in racketeering complaint!" When he
wouldn't resign we filed a federal racketeering complaint
against him and Brown. As soon as we filed, Lindstedt amended
Brune's complaint adding what they call an O.R.I.C.O. (Oregon
Racketeering Influence Corrupt Act) complaint against Brown.
What he said he had no authority to do, he did.
When we went into federal court Judge Rettin ruled that this
had all been handled, all been heard by Judge Johnson.
After that we went into the court of Judge Malcom Marsh. I
had a group of maybe 40 people there up in the old court
building in downtown Portland, big majestic federal courts like
the temples of Babylon. Janette's attorney Nick Albrecht was at
the council table. Marsh came swirling into that courtroom.
They swirl their robes around when they take their seats to
create a tension and to try to show authority and mastery. It
is ungodly. You can't get any more ungodly than our judicial
system.
"This has been heard many, many, many times before," said
Judge Marsh, "and I'm going to recount that on this time it was
heard by Judge Johnson, and it was heard by Judge Rettin."
"Well, obviously it's been heard," you would say if you
looked at the paper. But those are just words on paper. They
have nothing to do with the facts in the case. And that's
what's so hard to get through to people.
In the core of a racketeering complaint, there is a criminal
enterprise. There is a mission that is undertaken that is the
enterprise. There are players that are involved in that
enterprise to carry out some illegitimate, illegal end. And so
you name what the enterprise is, to steal this or do that,
convert this, whatever it is, name the enterprise, what it is
and who the parties are.
"Where's the enterprise Mr. Albrecht? Where's the
enterprise?" he demanded and Albrecht could hardly even speak.
His tongue stuck to the side of his mouth and he was making
these gagging, gurgling sounds. Marsh was obviously hostile.
It's so frustrating to me. What I'm describing is just blatant
criminal conduct that people go to jail for all the time that
is not a hundredth as serious as these charges that I'm making.
But because it is so open and there are so many involved in it,
no matter what you say in the courtroom, no matter what the
facts are, you're going to lose.
Albrecht was intimidated by Marsh and he basically fumbled
it. Lindstedt moved to dismiss our complaint claiming the
opposite to the judge that he'd said to us.
"Your honor, I am the Personal Representative of the
Kettleberg estate and as such I am the only person with the
authority to bring a racketeering complaint against Milton
Brown." Marsh went along protecting the good ol' boys and
granted Lindstedt's motion to dismiss.
I was coming out of the courthouse library one day a few
months later and I saw officer Sein, who works as a security
guard in the Multnomah county courthouse.
"Hi, no hard feelings," I said, because he'd been giving me
a hard time down there.
"Weidner?" he says.
"Yes."
"Well I can't let you go. I have a warrant for your
arrest."
"Signed by whom?"
"By Ellis." This was the upshot of Londer's directive to
report me to Judge Ellis. Sein called but they couldn't find it
on their computer so he let me go. This was March of 1992. When
I got home I called Judge Ellis. I've known him for 30 years.
He used to be very friendly. Not any more, of course. I called
his office.
"Judge Ellis?"
"Yes?"
"Ellis, this is Roger Weidner. Have you signed an order for
my arrest?"
"Yes."
"On what basis did you sign that?"
"I have reports that you are causing a disturbance down in
Presiding Court."
"Well, I want a hearing on that right now." Since he had an
order for my arrest I had a right to insist on an immediate
hearing. If an arrest warrant is issued there has to be an
underlying supporting document that states the reason for the
arrest. I was reportedly creating a disturbance in violation of
his orders to stay out of the courthouse except on
business.
"Well, I'm short of staff and I can't find my file."
"Judge Ellis, are you aware that Janette Kent's godfather is
a retired US District Court Judge?"
"Are you threatening me Weidner?" I detected a warning in
the tone of his voice.
"I'm not threatening you, I'm just stating a fact."
Janette's godfather's identity is a well kept secret because we
were afraid that they would bump him off. Because he was a
higher power figure he could exert some pressure on the court.
They thought that he would instigate an investigation and
compel the FBI to become involved.
I prepared a motion, a Show Cause order, for Judge Ellis to
appear in Presiding Court and show cause why that warrant
should not be withdrawn. Again I came in with a crowd of
people. Judge Frank Bearden was now sitting in the Presiding
Court. Frank Bearden is a dapper looking guy, probably in his
mid-fifties. Bright. Sharp. A good-looking male and he has kind
of a diffident personality. He doesn't have a thrusting
personality.
And so we were sitting there waiting, I had 30 people with
me, one fellow brought a video camera and no judge was coming
out. All of a sudden, BAM! The doors flew open and in came
these 4 sheriff's deputies.
"Weidner?"
"Yes?" One of the deputies grabbed my hand and shoved it up
behind my back.
"Well, I'm just wanting to make a record!"
"No! You're under arrest!" and out we went. The cameraman
was filming this. As they were taking me out the door I spoke
into the camera.
"I'm being arrested."
"What are you being arrested for?" asked the cameraman.
"Because of my work on the Kettleberg case."
Down the corridor we went, hand up behind my back, along the
east wall down to the end and around the corner and if you've
ever gone the wrong way down a one-way street you know the
reaction that I was watching. People were just literally
falling away on both sides.
"What are you arresting him for?" inquired my friend Jim
Kight as he made a big motion to step aside. This time I was in
there 21 days, 6 days in solitary.
When they arrest you they ordinarily put you in a concrete
bunker first, with your handcuffs on. They make it
uncomfortable. Initially, you're in an uncomfortable position.
You're anxious to get out of there and so you are
accommodating. In the second phase they put you into a holding
cell. You're not handcuffed but the temperature is
uncomfortably cold and you're just in your street clothes. You
get a single blanket. You're always shifting and turning and
you're very anxious to get out of there. And so you become very
compliant. When they took me out of there they placed me in
maximum security in one of those little cells where they put
the most violent criminals. It was in a protective bay and
there are only 3 cells in that bay. I was given only one hour
out each day, to shower basically. My food was slid under the
door on a tray. It wasn't solitary. Inmates could speak in
between cells and in the other 2 cells one was taunting the
other calling him the freeway raper.
"Freeway raper! Freeway raper!" he chanted mockingly..
"You #%&@$#&% !!" the other cursed and growled
back.
"Freewa-a-y raper! Freewa-a-y raper!" in a singsong
voice.
"Why you #+%&$@# !!" They kept this going back and forth
and I couldn't sleep. I was there from March 9 until I was
released April 1st of 1992.
I started going around the city circulating handbills
through all the business districts, passing out flyers with
pictures and a political cartoon. 'This is what's happening.
They're stealing down there in the court.' I got a call from
pastors Helen and Chet Jones. Chet is about 5 foot 10, my age,
very talkative, demonstrative in his mannerisms, pleasant
engaging kind of an impulsive type of a personality. Very
self-confident and somewhat naïve. Helen had been widowed.
She professed to be a pastor too. She was an attractive woman,
kind of a busty robust type, very serious but pleasant when I
met them. They owned American Showcase. They said they were
calling me to support me. They had bought a farm out in Beaver
Creek, Oregon as a Christian retreat. Jones bought the property
from Cathy Mason, whom they met through the church. They put
down a sum of money and got a 5-year lease/option to purchase
it and then started investing time and money into it. Cathy
Mason was divorced from her husband Don Calkins and in the
divorce settlement the Beaver Creek property was awarded to
Calkins. He was the owner but she had possession. When Cathy
and Don divorced he moved to California. The reason he walked
away from it early on was because of the debt being more than
the value of it. There were 2 or 3 other investors also. One
had a first mortgage the other had a second mortgage. She was
trying to sell it and the agreement was that she would get any
amount over and above what was owed on it. The investors were
to get back whatever their investments were. She wanted to get
out from under those payments so she had to get someone in
there to fix it up and she got pigeons. Mason said Chet Jones
could lease it for 5 years and exercise the option at the end
of that 5 years. He's a carpenter. He and his wife Helen then
started working on it tooth and nail.
Mason was professing such a strong religious belief.
"Oh this is God's miracle work!" Chet fell for it because
he's religious too. But when Lynn Springer, the real estate
agent, signed this lease/option he used some pretense not to
give Jones a copy of that agreement.
"I need to have someone else sign off on this." Springer
says, "and I'll get back to you. I'll have to bring you a copy
of it because I don't have." Well Chet, trusting, didn't
follow-up. Thinking that everything was ok Chet forgot to get
his copy. So he had no way of proving that he had a
lease/option.
So, they just sat back and waited while Helen was fixing up
the garden and Chet was remodeling. Cathy Mason would come out
and stroke them and tell them what a wonderful job they were
doing, fixing up this Christian retreat.
Chet did about $200,000 worth of improvements on it and had
about a million dollars in fixtures stored there. Because of
the work that he did the property was worth a lot more than
what was owed on it. So, Cathy and George Mason filed an FED
action, what a landlord brings against a tenant, and ordered
Jones off the property claiming there was no lease/option. They
claimed that he was just a tenant. There were some hearings
before I became involved. There was a lot of wrongdoing going
on by this Ken Schmidt, the crooked attorney representing Cathy
Mason. Schmidt came and grabbed some documents away from Helen
in Judge Pat Gilroy's courtroom. Gilroy is pushing 280 pounds
at least, very heavily jowled. When he talks he talks like it's
just causing him all kinds of problems to get it out. A mafiosa
kind of talk. I think he's intelligent but he's so corrupt. All
these events were working a hardship on Jones' marriage. Helen
was in a situation where Chet's father was in the store all the
time and antagonism built up. She also questioned Chet's
fidelity, suspicions broke out and their relationship wore
thin.
Calkins felt terrible because of what was being done to
these pastors. To remedy that he came up from California and
sold to me, on a promissory note, his interest in the property.
Don Calkins is about 5'10, sandy blond hair, a little bit
heavy. I was still unable to get on active status with the
Oregon State Bar so I couldn't fight for the property unless I
owned it and the pastors wanted me in the courtroom. I gave
Calkins a promissory note for 20 thousand dollars and he gave
me a bargain-and-sale deed transferring his interest in the
property to me. I became the legal owner of the property. So
then I told Helen and Chet Jones to stay on the property
because I'm the owner of it. Officer Terrence Shaeffer came out
and ran them off at gunpoint claiming that Judge Alan Jack
signed an order to clear the property. I can't believe I could
be as naïve as I was. Jack was involved early on. He told
Jones that he was the door to his property. Jack was a central
player in this.
In June 1992 I went out there with one of Chet's associates,
Jim Gordon. Gordon was a religious devotee of Helen and Chet
Jones and hung around and worked around the store for the
religious side of it. He was in the house while I was across
the street, talking to a neighbor. As I was relating the story
to the neighbor a police car pulled up. I think the cops were
just sitting down the street watching the property because I'd
told the Joneses to come back. I opened the gate, walked inside
the fence and stopped.
"Who are you?" I said to this officer standing there.
"My name is officer Shaeffer. Who are you?"
"Well, my name is Roger Weidner and I'm the owner of this
property."
"I'll mace you! I'll mace you! You're under arrest!" he
said, putting his hand on his gun. He arrested the two of us
for trespassing. We were held, booked and released. After I was
arrested Cathy Mason filed a trespassing complaint against me
and the trial was scheduled for September 17th of 1992.
In the meantime there were several hearings for Chet and
Helen, beginning in July. Judge Sidney Brockley had been very
treacherous. 5 foot 10 or 11, blond hair, round high forehead,
he kinda reminded me of Torquemada, Inquisitor-General of the
Spanish Inquisition. When he watches these events go on he has
this little bit of a rocking motion while he's watching. He
will cut you to pieces too. He'll hang you for the slightest
heresy. When you call him corrupt, that's heresy.
Ken Schmidt was the attorney for the other side. Ohhh, that
viper! Ken Schmidt is probably 60-years-old, kind of a mousy
face, narrow set eyes, always assessing what's going on. He
masterminded this deal to steal that property. Schmidt is
ruthless and outspoken. You wouldn't want him to be standing
around at a social event because he is overbearing in his
mannerisms, talking loudly and disheveled in his
appearance.
The judge was John Lowe and the trial, which lasted several
days, took place in the Clackamas County courthouse. Lowe is
about 6 foot one, soft-spoken, red jowly face. He looks like he
suffers from high blood pressure or like he's embarrassed about
something. His wife Cathy Lowe is a state Representative. Lowe
is a politically correct unprincipled attorney, who got his job
because he goes along with the good-ol'-boy network. He has
that mentality.
When Cathy came to court-ohhh, she had this horrible illness
and she had to be lying flat out on the floor there in the
courtroom behind the counsel table. She was playing that she
had to lie down for some reason and her husband/boyfriend,
George Mason, was rolling his eyes. The Masons claimed there
was no lease/option, that Chet and Helen were renting tenants,
that she gave them notice and was entitled to possession. They
said that I was claiming an interest in that property but that
I had no interest in it.
Ken Schmidt, this snake, the attorney for Cathy Mason, was
asking them questions and telling them the answers under his
breath during the hearing. Judge Lowe was just sitting up there
paying no attention.
"Schmidt," I said, "you're not."
"Oh, everyone does it!" It was a charade. I cross-examined
Cathy Mason and just devastated them.
"Isn't it a fact that you." she was denying the
lease/option.
"All this remodeling work that he did?"
"Yes."
".and he was just doing that you think to enrich you?"
"Well I don't know why he was doing it. He was just fixing
the place up." She was being evasive.
"Why would he be out there fixing the place up, doing all
these capital improvements on it, if he's just a month to month
tenant?"
"Well, I don't know. You'll have to ask him that." That kind
of answer.
At the end I was sure we had won because all the facts and
evidence were so overwhelming. Chet Jones and Jim Gordon laid
it all out. The private contractors, who owned the mortgages,
were called as witnesses too. The Masons and their cohorts had
all been impeached. They admitted it all though they denied
signing a lease/option. But Cathy Mason prevailed. Judge Lowe
ruled in her favor, ignoring all the evidence. I was in a state
of shocked disbelief.
The only time that innocent honest people come to court is
when something has been wrongfully taken from them. When you're
in a corrupt system the courtroom is the shearing shed because
the only time the crooks come to court is to take something!
They've got the system wired. The judge's advantage in ruling
against the evidence is that he gets paid to rule against it!
Someone is paying him off. Also, because it's so unusual the
kind of thing I'm doing, and I'm under so much stress, I often
don't have the time to compile detailed questions. Just to get
the event to happen takes so much energy. It's very
fatiguing.
After the hearing Schmidt offered me his hand to shake.
"I do not shake hands with thieves, Schmidt." Our little
group looked at him and the guards gave him escort service out
of the courthouse.
They took over a million dollars in property from the
pastors. Witnesses saw Cathy Mason and others scooping up all
of Chet's property while the sheriff protected them. The
pastors had stored a lot of their store fixtures and equipment
there. Those were all fungible assets and there is a ready
market for them. Schmidt and Mason sold the fixtures and
equipment, everyone was paid off and Schmidt got all the
leftover money in attorney fees, that's how ruthless they were.
That's always how it works. Chet said it looked just exactly
like a battle zone, with everything stripped out of there.
Cathy Mason is a consummate con artist. She posed as a
fellow church member and, you know, they just drip with this
sanctimoniousness.
"Oh we love God and we love you and we all just love Love
LOVE!!" until they see something to snatch and grab and then
WHAM! They grab it.
"MINE!" That's what they do, just like little kids. Their
bodies get big but they act just like little spoiled
children.
I thought pastors would be peaceful people but they ended up
being anything but pastors in their behavior toward one
another. In her mind, because of his foolishness Chet had
impoverished them by allowing that farm to be taken and she
thought he should provide for her. Chet was indignant that she
was upset with him. They started fighting viciously with each
other, they divorced and became horrible enemies.
CHAPTER FIVE
In September, 1992, I was tried in Judge Steven Maurer's
courtroom for criminal trespassing. I had this group of people
with me and when we walked into the courtroom there were 7 or 8
armed guards sitting in the jury box with their feet up on the
railing.
Maurer is another one in the mold of Ed Peterson, David
Buono and Norman Lindstedt. Well-groomed, mannerly, 5 foot 10
or 11, keeps himself in good shape, maybe 170 pounds, fair
freckled complexion, light red hair, intelligent and this
nervousness when I'm around. I've seen him out on the street.
He will pace back and forth like he's distracted all the
time.
There was rumbling discontent in the courtroom that day. The
District Attorney was prosecuting me for trespassing on that
land. Maurer would not let me go into the history of how Jones
had been defrauded of that property.
"The only question here is whether or not Mr. Weidner was on
that property. That's the only question. We're not going to go
into all the rest of this," said Maurer. I was trying to say
something and he'd keep interrupting, trying to shut me down,
to prevent me from making a record.
"A piece of paper doesn't make any difference. Only was Mr.
Weidner on that property." I had the document that showed the
transfer of ownership.
"It makes no difference what's on that piece of paper. The
only question in this trial, Mr. Weidner, is whether you were
on that property." The piece of paper he was referring to was
the bargain-and-sale deed that I had from Calkins. He continued
with this high-handedness, restricting testimony and blocking
evidence. He did the same thing Jim Ellis did when he tried me
for contempt.
"Now Mr. Weidner, we're not going to try that Kettleberg
case. The only question here is whether or not you spoke up in
court," Ellis had said.
"No, now the only thing we're going to be talking about is
what went on that day that Mr. Weidner was arrested." My
supporters were protesting, not real boisterous, just reacting.
Maurer and the DA would go into a flurry.
"Any outbursts and I will clear the courtroom!" Maurer said.
He did not clear it, he just threatened.
They brought Cathy Mason as a witness against me. I
cross-examined but only about the event. When I would start to
try to go into the background and extenuating circumstances,
which had a direct bearing on the event, the other side would
object and Maurer would sustain it. Cathy Mason didn't have to
show any paperwork of any kind that she had a right to do what
she did. He did not allow me to expose her duplicity and
treachery. So that's how they worked that, that little dog and
pony show that goes on.
"Objection sustained."
"Well I have a right to."
"Mr. Weidner."
"Well I have a right to cross-ex-"
"Now Mr. Weidner."
He was just insistent that I not bring up anything
meaningful and he was threatening to the crowd. He was poised
like a snake. Real stiff. Just like a cobra. When I go in the
courtroom and I see the judge has that look, he's got his head
down and he's kinda looking up, I know he's in the pocket of
the other side. They sit up there poised and everyone knows, by
the posture, that snake is poised to strike. And they get that
vacant look, just like those snakes in India that rise up and
sway back and forth. That's just exactly what these vipers look
like. They have to create an environment of intimidation. They
don't say it but by their behavior they do it. Everything they
said in the Bible is true. The whited sepulchres.
I was only allowed to call Chet Jones. I was not allowed to
call Helen Jones, his wife. Maurer was restricting the
witnesses and restricting testimony. He told the jury,
basically, that it made no difference who owned the property.
The only question was whether I was on the property. Lowe had
awarded it to the Masons and had ordered Jones, and anyone
associated with Jones, to stay off the property. He was
enforcing that prior order, refusing to allow me to challenge
the issue of ownership so the jury could consider that.
Obviously, he should have been letting me do everything, put on
the whole case. At that time I was not exploding. I was always
intent, giving the judge the benefit of the doubt rather than
openly challenging him.
People think that in a jury trial they have a better chance.
But the jurors just sit like little children with the judge.
Whatever the judge tells them, they comply unquestioningly. The
jury convicted me. He sentenced me to 10 days in jail,
psychiatric evaluation, $100,000 bail and I was walked right
out of the courtroom to the jailhouse. I did the 10 days in
solitary in the high security center there in Oregon City. When
I went to this Doctor Davis for the psychiatric examination I
took 6 people with me.
"You can ask me any questions that you want to Dr. Davis
but, because this is a political prosecution to which I'm being
subjected, I want these people to witness." He wouldn't examine
me.
One morning my name was called.
"Weidner!"
They have a big plexi-glass wall with little holes cut in
it. I walked over and was handed a subpoena from Barry Adamson,
Milton Brown's attorney, calling me into court in Multnomah
county on October 2nd, 1992. Now Milton Brown, this little
murderous thieving viper, whom I've chased out of the courtroom
previously, confronting him, is the last person in the world
that wants to see me in a courtroom. He was subpoenaing me into
a courtroom in Multnomah County, while I was in jail in
Clackamas County. It was a set-up. I felt that a trap was being
set to shut me down permanently because of my activities. I was
going all around town, passing out flyers and talking to
everyone I could. You know the kind of response you get-none
from the people you know. Everyone that is comfortable runs
off. I had been ordered by Judge Ellis to stay out of the
Multnomah County Courthouse except on court business. Because
there was this order of exclusion I was subject to being
arrested for coming in. But I was subpoenaed in. I might be
arrested before security knew I'd been subpoenaed. If I did go
into the courthouse, and if I did not go into the courthouse,
either way, I was subject to arrest. So, I decided to go into
presiding court and make a record of that fact.
When I entered the courthouse I sensed this stress and this
nervousness in the air. I and my supporters, this big crowd,
went down to courtroom 210, the courtroom to which I was
subpoenaed, to see what was going. There were 3 or 4 guards
around the door.
Some of us were heading back down to presiding court when I
saw Bill Keyes, whom I've known for years, coming out of Judge
Abraham's courtroom. Keyes is 260 pounds or so, 6 foot one or
2, full freckled face, dark red hair and in years past he would
try to act friendly.
"Oh, how ya doin' Rog..." showing a friendly personable
side, but he's a lapdog kind of a guy.
"Judge Keyes, come here I want you to talk to these people,"
and he ran onto the elevator. I went up and held the doors
open.
"Come here Keyes. These people want to talk to you." He was
standing in the back with his head turned to the side. He
wouldn't look at me.
We went on down to presiding court. Judge Bearden was the
presiding court judge. We waited for a period of time but the
judge wouldn't come out so I stood up and spoke to my
supporters.
"People, these courtrooms belong to you. This corruption in
this court system is going to end. People are having their
children and properties stolen."
While I was standing, in came John Herring, a Multnomah
county sheriff's deputy. Herring is about 6 foot 3 or 4, slim
build, crewcut, in shape, just doing-what-he's-told kind of a
police officer. He was accompanied by officer Rita Berman. Rita
has that eats-or-drinks-too-much look to her. She fills out all
of her uniform and then some. Mid-fifties, dyed red hair, kind
of a ruddy, flushed complexion.
"People, this is John Herring. He's arrested me and he knows
about the corruption that's going on. Herring, is there
anything you want to say to these people?" He said nothing.
Brown opened the door and I spotted him.
"Come in here Brown!" As I walked toward the door Rita
Berman tried to step between us to protect Milton Brown. She
was nervously standing in front of me but she wasn't making a
firm presence. She wasn't sure of herself. I walked around her,
went to the door and saw him going down the corridor and around
the corner, scurrying along the wall like a rat.
I went back into the courtroom and pretty soon along came
David Simpson, a former Portland police officer, now head of
security for NIKE. David Simpson is a lady's man. Dapper
looking guy. He was a lieutenant in the Portland police
department when I was in the District Attorney's office in
1975. We hit it off. He's a sharp guy.
"C'mon Roger, we're going to move this all down to 210."
They had all the security down at 210, guards all over the
place. By now the tension was just pulsating. It was palpable.
We went down there and I spoke to my supporters.
"People, I have an absolute right to go into that courtroom
and make a record. If anyone tries to stop me you just say,
'Let him speak!'"
I was stressed. I walked up to the door and here stands
Herring right in the door, kind of checking as you go through.
Mother had already gone inside as most of the group had and as
I came up to the door with Dal Ferry Mother stepped
forward.
"It's over," she said.
"It's over?" I looked questioningly at Herring.
"You're under arrest! You've assaulted me. You're under
arrest," he snarled. And I thought, my God, they are going to
do it! When he said that I thought they were going to do me in.
He accused me of assaulting him because I inadvertently touched
him as I was walking by. I don't like to rub up against
someone's body. You know, if you're in a tight group you kinda
hold your arm up as a barrier and that's all I was doing.
"Do not let them arrest me! Do not let them arrest me!" I
shouted. Herring put his hand on me. I started to punch this
one sergeant because he was the closest. My thinking was I was
going to punch him to create such a commotion that they
couldn't take me off and do me in. I thought they were going to
kill me if they just walked me out of there. I was not going
quietly. They were getting one squawking chicken! I did not
want to be taken out of that courtroom.
"NO!" Mother said and I dropped my punch. I didn't hit
him.
I used to box. We started boxing when we were kids and then
I boxed when I was in college. I was the light heavyweight
champion back at Brigham Young University. I'm not a polished
pro but I know how to punch. I'm pretty good at doing that.
When they took me into custody the cops circled me just like
a bunch of dogs. One of them jumped me and put a choke hold on
me. As I was going down I turned and Mother-this Rita Berman
had her arms pinioned behind her back.
Mother was 82 at the time. Everyone knows her. She's as
straight as a string and she's always had this intolerance for
anything crooked or corrupt. She's also blind to the
shortcomings of her family or friends. But when I've been under
attack, in the courtroom, my mother is the one that is making
the instinctive moves forward to help. I do whatever I can to
make her life as comfortable as I possibly can. My mother
spends no money on herself at all. Extremely thrifty. With that
frugality she's been able to underwrite my activities.
So, as I'm going down I see Mother, arms pinioned, over on
one foot to kick. All the rest of the men and everyone else
around-have you ever seen sheep's eyes when they get spooked?
All my supporters were transfixed while this commotion was
going on. I was yarded out of there, roughly, and taken
upstairs. Everywhere I went I kept talking loudly.
"My name is Roger Weidner. I'm being arrested on false
charges," to make a commotion about what I was doing. To
everyone in the hallways and as I was walking down the row of
jail cells to the cell they had for me I continued
speaking.
"This is political people. My name is Roger Weidner and I'm
being arrested for working on the Kettleberg case."
I was put in an iron cage for about 8 hours. This was an
unusual old cell, kinda out-of-the-way place. I was left by
myself. I didn't know whether my mother had been arrested but I
figured it calmed down after I was taken into custody. As it
turned out she was not arrested. A fellow was there taping with
the video camera. I was being held for the contempt that had
occurred in Judge Ellis' court. He'd sentenced me to 6 months
in jail. I had been released, pending an appeal.
I was held in the justice center from October 2nd, 1992
until I was released just before Christmas, December of 1992.
The justice center houses the Portland police department, 3 or
4 criminal courts and then it has the jail up above it too. I
had only been out a few days from the September 17th trial, the
10 days for contempt.
October 20th they brought me in and tried me in Judge
Marshall Amiton's court for this assault. I've known Marshall
Amiton since we started practicing law about the same time.
He's intelligent, a little stand-offish and has a nervousness
about him when he meets you or talks to you. High forehead,
sharp features, knows what's going on. When I was being tried
in his courtroom he allowed me to put on the evidence, call
witnesses and make a record. I got on the stand and stated all
of this. When you are in jail it's not quite the same. I didn't
feel quite as free as usual. But Judge Marshall Amiton allowed
it to be videoed.
Fred Lenzer was prosecuting me. Fred Lenzer looks a lot like
Norman Lindstedt. Graying, 5 foot 8 or 9, 175 pounds, maintains
a good appearance, but he's unprincipled because he will
prosecute politically. When he came in he said they had charges
against me that could result in a maximum prison sentence of 2
1/2 years. The charges were basically assault, contempt and
another contempt. He asked me if I would waive a jury.
"Absolutely not! I will not waive a jury."
So they dismissed all the criminal charges and tried me on
the infraction of resisting arrest. I was convicted by Amiton
of that. I think I was fined $250 but no jail time. However, I
was still being held on Judge Ellis' order until just before
Christmas of 1992. Did I pay the fine? Absolutely not! I paid
not a nickel! I did 3 months of the 6 months contempt order, at
that time, but that was just the beginning of these jailings
that went on for the next 4 years.
Some of the inmates that had a sophistication about them
would come over and talk with me. When they found out I was an
attorney they'd want to tell me their stories. I'd help them to
the extent that I could. I didn't want to get embroiled in
their cases because of the fatigue of dealing with people's
problems. I talked to them about the corruption, of course.
Guards, everyone. Every where I go. That's all I want to talk
about is the corruption.
While I was incarcerated I filed a racketeering complaint
against Cathy Mason, Ken Schmidt, Judge John Lowe, Judge Sidney
Brockley, Judge Alan Jack and Judge Pat Gilroy for covering up
and allowing the theft of that Beaver Creek property of the
pastors, Chet and Helen Jones. They had the hearing while I was
in jail and they dismissed it on the grounds that I'd failed to
put my name and address on the complaint. So I filed a motion
to set aside that order of dismissal and that was scheduled for
April or May of 1993 in Clackamas County. I went into presiding
court to serve Judge Alan Jack with a subpoena to appear.
Alan Jack has to be in his early 70's, tall, 6 foot 2 or 3,
looks like he maybe played basketball in high school. Still
wears a crewcut. Long angular face, tries to be a kind of a
cowboy type of a guy, quiet talking sort of a fella. I've known
him socially, not well, for 30 years. We'd be at a Bar
convention and talk back and forth. Visit. He had a boat down
at the Portland Rowing Club. We'd say hello. Not at all
intellectual. His father was a judge so he's tied in
politically, a political hack. One of the gang out there in
Clackamas county.
They have a call process where you come into court and wait
until they call your case. I was waiting in line. My turn came
and I walked up to the counter and started to walk towards
him.
"I have here some process for you judge," I said to him
while he was sitting on the bench.
"You stay away from me! You stay away from me! You give it
to the bailiff." He was startled and he had guilt written all
over him.
They brought in Judge Gregory Milnes from Washington County
to hear it. Greg Milnes is obese and out of shape. He eats way
too much. His face is losing it's contour, it's getting so fat.
You see the face all of a sudden disappear. The fat takes it.
He's 280-90 pounds. He's intelligent enough, though
unprincipled and corrupt.
I had quite a large group of people with me including
newspaper reporter Dal Ferry. The hearing was to set aside this
order of dismissal of our racketeering complaint. Chet Jones
was at the counsel table and so was I. We were both plaintiffs.
The judge asked Chet a question and he started speaking. Like
so many of them, they follow their own inclinations. But they
don't have that courtroom savvy. Jones was trying to explain
something to the judge and the judge was encouraging any
dialogue to keep me from speaking. If I started to speak and
Jones started speaking too, he recognized Jones. I tried to
shut Jones down so I could make this record but when I tried to
speak Milnes kept shutting me down.
"Now, Mr. Weidner-Mr. Wei-Mr. Weidner, now." Milnes saying
this to me. I can't remember the specifics of what Jones was
making reference to but Milnes was blocking me from
speaking.
"If I'm not going to be allowed to speak in this courtroom
then I'm going to leave. Let's leave people."
"Ah.well.no-Mr.-now Mr. Weidner..." He was turning pale and
looking past me while he was speaking. I turned around to see
what he was looking at and saw Captain Sherwood Stillman,
armed, with 6 armed deputies, coming into the courtroom and
locking the doors and shuttering the windows. Sherwood Stillman
has the look of a killer, unlike officer David Simpson. Police
officers are hired killers. If they won't kill they're not
hired as police officers. But, some of them have no hesitancy
and Stillman was that kind. 5 foot 9 or 10, 170 or 80 pounds,
he has a very cold, empty look in his eyes, kind of a vacant
look. He would bump you off in a minute. If he was leading a
squad to go in and wipe someone out he wouldn't have any
trouble doing that.
"Roger, they're going to arrest you!" Chet said to me. All
of a sudden here's this Sherwood Stillman, just like a junkyard
dog and this frenetic activity, chairs being thrown around in
their haste to come and grab me. A couple of guards were
kicking open the door.
"You're under arrest," Stillman growled. Mother was on her
feet in a instant, confronting the judge.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"I'm not leaving this courtroom without a warrant Judge
Milnes. I'm holding you responsible for my safety," I said. To
have armed guards coming in there and locking the doors and
shuttering the windows! I thought, my God they are going to do
it! I thought they were setting it up to do me in. This short
sergeant in the back, like a little kid he pipes up.
"Oh I'll go get the warrant!" I could see his eyes. They
were like banjos.
"I'll go get it!" He did not want to be there with what was
going on in that courtroom. When he left the courtroom in
pursuit of a warrant things calmed down a bit. Then Dal Ferry
stood up.
"I'm Dal Ferry with the Counterpoint newspaper and what's
the meaning of this?" he demanded. That had the effect of
blowing a whistle on charging dogs. All of a sudden the
momentum was broken. The hostility subsided. Stillman released
me and we completed the hearing without the hostility then I
was taken into custody in a civil fashion. They didn't find a
warrant and the sergeant never came back but I was arrested
anyway, in reaction. That's how they are in a corrupt system. I
was taken into custody on grounds that I had disobeyed an order
and failed to appear for my psychiatric evaluation. Stillman
came up with something where Maurer had ordered my arrest
because when I went to see that psychiatrist, Davis, and I took
those people with me, Davis would not examine me, so he said I
didn't show up. I was arrested, released, then charged with
contempt and rearrested in Milnes' court. They took me into
custody and the next day or later that afternoon I was brought
into Judge Sealander's courtroom in shackles and chains. I had
a waist chain, they hook your wrists into that, ankle cuffs and
4 guards, 2 fore and 2 aft.
Sealander was kinda wall-eyed and nervous. He's around 6
foot, maybe 50 years old. Pretty astute. He knows what's going
on and tries to ride the fence. A little stiff . When he looks
around his whole body turns. I don't know why that is but
that's a trait of people who consider themselves important. He
wasn't hostile at all. Sealander's never been hostile to me. I
was held a day or two and released.
CHAPTER SIX
Around May or June of 1993 they charged me a second time in
another Bar complaint. The first Bar complaint that was filed
against me they had no evidence whatsoever that I had an
attorney/client relationship so they dismissed that charge.
"No misconduct."
Now, the second time, they brought 3 charges against me.
They charged me with notarizing a document when my notary had
expired, bringing discredit upon the legal profession by
getting arrested in court and paying myself earned fees on the
Gannon estate without the approval of Lee Johnson, the probate
judge.
I'd represented this Tom Gannon. He did not want to leave
his money to his children because they were ignoring him. He
was a drinker. He'd alienated his children and they wouldn't
pay any attention to him or have anything to do with him. He
said he wanted to leave his money to some parties in
California. He wanted me to handle some of his legal problems
for him and draft a will disinheriting his children. He named
them but didn't leave them anything so that they were not
considered pretermitted, intentionally omitted. If you do not
name them it's presumed that you forgot. So, I became his
surrogate son and did all this legal work for him. He had some
investments and he was getting to the point where he couldn't
keep track of things. He had a lot of emotional problems and he
was always whining about how much it was going to cost. When
I'd bill him $150 an hour it caused him so much distress it
compounded the problem. He would make such a bone about it we
tried to keep the costs as low as possible. Mother came and did
some work for him too.
After he died his children hired attorney Joel Grayson.
Joel's brother Jeff Grayson, with whom I had attended high
school, was an investment fund manager and owner of Capital
Consultants, managing investment pension money. He had just
bilked those pension funds out of millions of dollars. These
loan companies were borrowing money from him. The pension
funds-all this money-they have to put it someplace. Jeff was
manipulating that money and making some bad investments.
Capital Consultants invested about 150 million dollars in this
Wilshire Home Investment company. That company went belly up
and they lost their money but he made money because he was all
on commission and getting kickbacks. When that happened all
these cards came tumbling down on Jeff Grayson and his son, so
his son copped a plea to testify against his father. Jeff's
mother went to prison too. Blossom Grayson. When we were kids
in high school that was a no no subject because Blossom got
packed off to McNeil Island. Some sort of fraud.
Joel moved to have Gannon's will set aside and then came
after me for the fees that I paid myself without getting Judge
Johnson's approval. And, of course, who's sitting there as the
judge but Judge Johnson, who granted everything to them against
me.
The next event was an appeal on one of Judge Johnson's
rulings on the Kettleberg case, October or November of 1993.
During the interim I was getting people motivated and aware and
finding others that were in the battle. Judge Alan Jack was
involved in this case. Ed Snook was doing investigations work
at the time. He wanted to get the goods on Jack because this
same judge was working over one of his clients. Ed was hired by
this woman who kept a dog kennel. She had a place out on 82nd
street, a marriage chapel, with these dog kennels in the back.
She asked Ed to investigate these citations she was getting for
the manner in which the dogs were being kept. He went into
court and saw the high-handed treatment and arbitrary way that
Judge Jack was dealing with her. They were going to fine her.
Once they do that, they see an asset sitting there, they run it
through a foreclosure, no one shows up and they take all the
assets. That's a modus de operandi that a lot of these corrupt
counties have. I don't know specifically on her case.
Ed sent his partner down to see what he could find out about
Jack and they discovered that he was named as a defendant on
one of my racketeering complaints. Ed read the file and
contacted me. Ed Snook is 6 foot 6, early 40's, a former
semi-pro boxer and dog trainer. He has a commanding presence
and he has the ability to draw people to him. He has been
relentless going after this corruption.
So Ed was tracking on this and he came together with Dal
Ferry. Dal Ferry was having a lot of medical problems. He was
in his mid-eighties and it was stressful for him. He didn't
know whether he wanted to take them on full bore. But Ed did
and he stayed with it. Not long after that Dal Ferry's
Counterpoint newspaper ceased and Ed Snook's Oregon Observer
(www.theoregonobserver.com) began. Ed is steadfast, taking on
the responsibility of putting out that paper. I support him
1000%. I raise money for him. Early on he did not discern the
corruption problem and would get after me when I'd start
talking about it. But now he makes me sound like a choir
boy.
And so Ed was doing some papers and we gathered for this
hearing down at the Court of Appeals in Salem, the same
courtroom as the Supreme Court. This was going to be a 3-judge
panel and they brought up a guard because I was down there.
"Do not stand up when the judge comes in. We do not stand up
in these corrupt courtrooms." Before the hearing began I was in
the courtroom standing right over Lindstedt and Buono.
"People, these are shameless, treacherous thieves!"
Janette's attorney Nick Albrecht was very angry.
"Roger! You stop doing this! You have no right to be doing
this in this courtroom!" He was trying to get me to back down.
This was Janette's appeal on one of the many corrupt rulings by
Judge Johnson. The head of the 3-judge panel was Ed Warren.
He's a little older than me but I've known the guy for 30
years. He's kind of a mousy sort of an attorney, about 5 foot 8
or 9. He reminds me of Mr. Peepers. He got into the Court of
Appeals and has been there 20 years. Apparently they were in
the back listening to what was going on in the courtroom.
Warren opened the door and his eyes were like saucers. When he
came out he sat down and pointed at me, wide-eyed and
glaring.
"Arrest him!" to the police officer there, the state
trooper.
"Arrest him!" pointing at me.
"You mean you're going to arrest me for speaking in this
courtroom?"
"Arrest him!" The guard came over, placed my hands behind my
back, handcuffs on and I motioned for Mother and Ed to follow.
It wasn't a hostile arrest. We all went down in the elevator
and they had a state police car waiting. When I came out of the
building the car was parked on the street right at the driveway
that goes into the parking lot between the Supreme Court
building and the Justice Center. It was not a normal place to
park so I was suspicious. Normally they would go into that
driveway and park if they were just doing ordinary business.
They had a spotter car out there with no markings on it, a
black Jeep Cherokee, parked up in front of them. Two men were
standing by the troopers' car when I was put into it. The front
seat was pushed so far back I couldn't sit up so I had to lay
over on my side. They didn't want me sitting up so I could be
seen. The 2 men got into the unmarked car and these two cars
circled the State Capitol. The Cherokee went down the driveway
under the State Capitol and the trooper parked on State Street
in that area marked for police cars at the west end of the
Capitol. That's what concerned me. I thought they were setting
me up because the cop got out to leave me unattended in that
car lying handcuffed in the backseat. Someone could come by
there, bump me off and say that I ran. When you're dealing with
the police you're dealing with trained, professional killers.
If they won't kill they're not hired as police officers.
"I do not want to be left in this car unattended in
handcuffs," I said. So, they took me into the Oregon State
Police offices and I started talking to them.
"Do you have any idea what's going on?" I asked the troopers
and I told them about these events. The plainclothes cops were
in the room that I was taken into. They never talked to me.
There was just a single officer that questioned me.
"I'm just doing what I'm told to do," he said.
I had the crowd of people there so I wasn't isolated. There
were people at the court hearing who saw all this and the
hearing continued. They held me a couple hours and cut me
loose. No charges. Nothing. I went back up to the courtroom.
The hearing was over and people were coming out. Janette's
appeal had been dismissed. This was October of 1993.
In January of 1994 the 2nd disbarment proceeding was to take
place on the third floor of the Justice Center. When I went
over to serve Don Londer with a subpoena to show up at the
court his receptionist, this gal Debby, held the door.
"No, you can't come in!" Then I went down the hall to serve
Judge Joe Cinoceros and he wouldn't come out of his chambers.
Sergeant Guy Moore with the sheriff's office said he would go
with me. Sergeant Guy Moore is a very pleasant guy, 5 foot 8 or
9, curly hair, sharp facial features, conscientious and he knew
what was going on down at the courthouse. He would actually
intercede. He went with Mother to talk to the judges and every
time I see him now we have a pleasant exchange. He's with the
US Marshall's office and works over in the Federal Building.
Sgt. Moore accompanied me when I went to serve subpoenas on
Cinoceros and Londer. Cinoceros came out and accepted the
service of his subpoena but Londer had me leave his with his
clerk. So I'm having to get sheriff's deputies to go with me to
serve these judges! Incredible that this can be going on!
December of 1993 Judge Lee Johnson advised us that he would
be unavailable to testify at my disbarment but I could take his
deposition-perpetuate his testimony-in his jury room. I had
video and there was a clerk there also. Judge Johnson, who'd
been fleeing the courtroom, was sitting with me face to face. I
asked him several questions and wrapped it up.
"Judge Johnson, you are the most corrupt, incompetent judge
in the United States. Do you understand that? And I'm charging
you with aiding and abetting in theft. Do you understand
that?"
"I'm not going to answer that."
Walter Barnes was the hearings officer. He looked to me like
an old cowhand. I think he still wants to get back on the
ranch. He's in his mid to late 50's, a little out of shape and
seems embarrassed to be involved in this. Mary Grimes, an
ardent feminist attorney was a panelist and a schoolteacher
from Salem was the other panel member. The teacher was not a
Bar member. Barnes had allowed me to issue subpoenas to Judges
Lowe, Cinoceros, Keyes, Jack, Gilroy, Brockley, Londer, Johnson
and Ellis saying that I was the subject of a conspiracy
involving these judges. Barnes was an attorney, who was sitting
as a pro temp judge on the 3-member trial panel level, the
first level of a disbarment proceeding.
I had a crowd of people in there. John Barker was
prosecuting. Barker tries to play like a boy scout, 6 foot or
so, balding, tries to be Mr. Nice Guy when he's talking to you
personally but he's obviously treacherous. He knew he was just
being a hatchet man for the Oregon State Bar. Martha Hicks was
co-council. Martha Hicks prosecuted me twice for the Oregon
State Bar. She wanted me disbarred the first time on absolutely
no grounds at all. She is as treacherous as they come. They put
on their evidence and put me on the stand.
"Did you notarize this document?"
"Yes."
".after your notary had expired?"
"Yes, but I did it inadvertently. I didn't realize my
notary-"
".and you paid yourself fees?"
"Yes-"
".without getting Judge Johnson's approval?"
"Yes."
".which is a violation of the rule that you're supposed to
get the probate judge's permission?"
I said I had inadvertently done it. The fees were owed and I
showed the work that I did to earn the fees. I wasn't practiced
in probate. I paid myself the time that I had billed but I was
supposed to get that approved by the probate judge. No one
disputed the truthfulness of what I was saying. Sherwood
Stillman, Cathy Mason and their other witnesses were in the
courtroom waiting while I testified in my own behalf.
"People this is Captain Sherwood Stillman who came in and
locked the doors and shuttered the windows and arrested me out
there in Clackamas county court." I said, pointing him out to
people in the courtroom. He sat there glaring at me. Then he
was called as their witness to testify that I got arrested. I
cross-examined.
"You came in, did you, with 6 other officers?"
"Yes."
"Isn't it a fact that you had no warrant when you.?" He was
evasive.
"Well, there was one, I was told that there was one on
file." They always give these evasive answers.
Dal Ferry of Counterpoint newspaper was there. Ed Snook with
the Oregon Observer paper was there. My mother and a big crowd
was there and at the conclusion of the hearing Walter Barnes
let me call 9 witnesses. I went on the attack. I called Martha
Hicks as an adverse witness and impeached her credibility. She
had been parroting false charges of the previous disbarment,
which was dismissed. I went through them and she just sat there
with a blank look. She denied authoring a document that I
introduced. I had a photo copy of this document she had signed.
It was a document that she had written about the complaint that
had been filed against Norman Lindstedt and Milton Brown. She
was claiming that she found no violations of the code of
professional conduct by Mr. Brown and Mr. Lindstedt.
"Is this your signature?"
"No," she said, "it's not. It's not my signature." It was a
reproduced smaller version of her document so she was being
evasive.
"Well, it's a copy." I said.
"Well, uh, no, it's a replica of my signature." I took her
apart on the stand. I had 8 judges, including Londer, Keyes,
Ellis, Lowe, Gilroy, Jack and Cinoceros on the stand. Cinoceros
is 5 foot 8 or 9, glasses, dark hair, intense. He has an
Italian, swarthy look to him. Judge Sidney Brockley did not
respond to the subpoena.
"I've named you, haven't I Judge Londer, in aiding and
abetting.."
"Oh, you've filed some paper. I haven't read it but you
filed something." and they all gave very evasive answers.
"We've known each other, have we not, for a number of
years?"
"Yes we've practiced law here." quietly blustering down into
their suits.
"I've never had any problem.?"
"No, we've never had any problem with you." mumbling with a
mouth full of rocks, red-faced, as they should.
"And you know who Milton Brown is?"
"Oh I've known him ye-e-a-a-rs ago." They would distance
themselves from Milton Brown.
"Isn't it a fact Judge Ellis that you and Milton Brown
practiced in the same law office?"
"No-uh, well, he was down the hall but no, we didn't
practice together." They were not forthcoming and they had
nothing to say. The other side didn't refute or challenge any
of it.
"No questions," they would say when I got through. One of
the members of the trial panel, Mary Grimes, asked Janette Kent
the name of her godfather. She threatened Janette with jail if
Janette, who was just a witness, didn't reveal who her
godfather was. The viciousness of it!
The Oregon Spectator newspaper reported that it appeared the
judges were all Alzheimer's patients. When I put them on the
stand they couldn't remember anything. When Judge Ellis left
the stand he was actually bumping into the wall trying to find
the door, he was so nervous and disoriented, mortified that he
was being prosecuted by one that he'd thrown in jail. What I
was seeing was that the whole system was attacking the
innocent. For the Bar to come after me a second time, after
I've yelled foul and corruption, I could see the deep-seeded
enormity of it. Every time something like this happens it is so
monumental! It is exactly like catching a police officer
holding up the store. But people are so unaware, they just
don't get it.
At the conclusion of that trial we were openly
talking-Walter Barnes, Dal Ferry, Ed Snook, and myself-in court
about what can be done about the corruption problem. Walter
Barnes was the chair of the 3-member panel. He conceded that
the court systems are corrupted and asked the group what we
could do about it. They had no credible evidence at all to
support any of their charges against me.
"Well listen," I said, "there's no evidence here but I want
you to suspend me for at least 60 days. If it's a 60-day
suspension then I automatically get a review by the Supreme
Court." I wanted to get back into that Supreme Court and tell
again what had been happening to me. They had no credible
evidence for the assertions they made. It was trivial and they
would never disbar or even discipline someone for that, not
when he's done nothing intentionally wrong, if he just was
careless and there was no injury. I notarized someone's
affidavit! Instead, they voted to disbar me. After I
discredited all their witnesses and we talked openly and
sincerely about the corruption, the opinion, which was written
later, ignored all the facts and recommended disbarment on no
evidence. What you prove in court means nothing. It was to go
to the Supreme Court.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In May of 1994 I had Kent assign me her interest in the
estate so I could appear and I went into Lee Johnson's probate
court.
"Mr. Weidner if you speak I will have you arrested," Johnson
said.
"Well I'm here to make a record and I'm going to speak." So
he ordered me arrested. I was taken up to jail and brought back
a couple hours later with 6 guards.
"Mr. Weidner, I'm going to give you 2 days in jail for
contempt but I'm going to give you 5 minutes to make a record."
So, I opened up and for 5 minutes I spoke about murder,
forgery, theft and corruption then off I went to jail. I did 2
days. I'd have done 10 days in jail for that! I'd do a day a
minute!-just to be able to get into that courtroom and make a
record, something which I have an absolute right to do.
In June I filed a racketeering complaint against a group of
judges. I had filed a previous racketeering complaint in
federal court that had been dismissed by Judge Malcolm Marsh.
This was the second complaint I filed and it was scheduled to
be heard in December of 1994.
In September of 1994 was the hearing before the Oregon
Supreme Court on the disbarment. A couple months earlier, while
I was down in front of the courthouse making a video for TV
about my upcoming Supreme Court case, I encountered Wallace
Carson, the Chief Justice, putting money in his meter. Carson
became Chief Justice when Ed Peterson left the court shortly
after my first disbarment trial in June of 1990. Wallace Carson
is mid-sixties, about 6 foot, slightly pompadour hair, quite a
bit of silver in it. He is a very pleasant person just to talk
to. He's got a very accommodating demeanor to him.
"I would like to video this upcoming Supreme Court
proceeding," I said.
"I don't see any problem," he replied. He later confirmed
that I could video the proceedings so I had a camera there in
the courtroom in September 1994.
Carson's personable nature conceals the fact that he is very
very weak. He's admitted his problems with this corruption in
the court system but doesn't do anything about it. He told
Wilbur Gaston he wasn't sure that he could do anything about
it.
'.gee, there's nothing I can do.' for a Chief Justice to say
that! He's in that position for a reason. The Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court is the chief justice of the court system and
the chief administrator of the judicial branch of government
for the whole state. Because he is at the center of the court
system he is the eye of the monster. Everything comes through
him. Apparently the corruption has become so great that it
controls him.
There were 7 judges empanelled and a big crowd of people
there. Usually there is a series of 3 or 4 cases to be heard in
a single setting. When they were finished speaking I got up. It
was my petition. I was appealing, arguing the decision that was
rendered by the trial panel. George VanHoomisen was on the
court at that time, Durham, Bailey, and Susan Graeber.
"I'm not here to seek your favor. I'm here to expose this
intolerable corruption that's going on in this court system.
Nine years ago Milton Brown and Dr. Charles Hahn murdered their
terminally ill partner, Don Kettleberg, by writing 'do not
resuscitate' on his medical records, forged these documents." I
went through this for a half an hour on video. They just sat
there. This was the final trial in the second attempt to disbar
me. There was no credible evidence to support any of the
assertions they had made. I caught the witnesses lying at the
trial panel level. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court disbarred
me.
In October of 1994 I was called to jury duty and while I was
on jury duty I went around talking to all these people in the
jury room, telling them about the corruption.
"I'm going to send notices to all of these public officials
to appear in presiding court on October 14th, 1994, to show
cause why a special grand jury should not be formed to
investigate this corruption." This was an unprecedented event.
I sent out the notices and we went up to the court on the
designated day. The notices were just ignored. No one showed up
and the judge wouldn't come out of the back room so I stood
up.
"People, this is the time set for these individuals to
appear and show cause why a special grand jury should not be
formed. We, as members of the jury pool, hereby declare a grand
jury formed." So we formed this special grand jury. I was the
foreman. I had 20 or so people but they all looked like kittens
when they come out of a cave or someplace, timidly looking
around, testing the water. I wasn't taking down all the names.
I probably should have but when you're doing this it's so
stressful, so many details. What you're trying to do is create
the event, then publicize the event to intimidate the
opposition. Chances of actually getting a grand jury were
pretty slim. I'd been trying to get one already for years. The
District Attorney can call one and the Governor and Attorney
General can form one. At this time, a private citizen cannot
form a grand jury but if we get this Jail-for-Judges movement
empowered that will be one of the strategies they will
employ.
My racketeering complaint was scheduled to be heard in
December, 1994. I filed it then moved for Summary Judgment.
Charles Markley, Milton Brown's attorney was there, Kathleen
Cegla for Londer, Ellis and all the other judges I'd named and
David Buono for his partner Norman Lindstedt. Three attorneys.
They were moving to dismiss my racketeering complaint. I got
another big crowd together. The Chief Justice, Wallace Carson,
is the one who assigns cases. It was assigned to Judge Ed
Peterson. He's a key player in all of this. Formerly, as the
Chief Justice, he was the chief administrative judicial officer
for the state of Oregon. A county Presiding Court Judge is for
the county. Londer was for Multnomah county. He and Ed are
buddy-buddy. Peterson, while he was Supreme Court Chief
Justice, had been dismissing all the petitions I filed. I had
filed Writs of Mandamus and other compulsory process into the
Supreme Court to stop the corruption and theft of the
Kettleberg estate. All were denied without a hearing by
Peterson and Carson.
"You're a pro temp judge are you not, Lindstedt?" I asked
when I had Lindstedt on the stand.
"Yes, I'm appointed by Ed Peterson and Don Londer." So,
click, there's this group. Judge Lee Johnson was locking into
that, protecting them, and so were Ellis and Abraham. Ed
Peterson was orchestrating the prosecution of me through the
Oregon State Bar. He was giving me notes outside the courtroom.
His old law firm, Tooze/Marshall, is right in the middle of it.
Kathleen Cegla was prosecuting for the state of Oregon.
Kathleen Cegla is in her late thirties, cropped hair, looks
like a page, a birdlike secretary look. There are these empty
kinds of yuppie or politically correct feminists in there that
are doing their assigned work. They all look like they're cut
out of a cookie cutter. Their little prissy outfits, their hair
is cropped, usually dyed hair and they are just as ruthless as
can be. When Peterson came on the bench I pointed at him.
"I've named you Judge Peterson in aiding and abetting." He
was sitting there in his black robe and his eyes kind of
dilated.
"Mr. Weidner, I'm going to let you make your record and go
in the back room but first I'm going to let these others
speak." After everybody else talked, Peterson said he was
closing the courtroom.
"You are not closing the courtroom. People, do not leave
this courtroom." When I said that, Peterson and these 3
attorneys got up and fled the courtroom. All the people were
watching.
"Look at the crooks! Look at them running out of the
courtroom!" And then the guards came in.
"Clear the courtroom! Clear the courtroom!"
"People, do not leave this courtroom," I said.
"Well, we'll have to arrest you Roger." It was Rick
Megolanes, one of the guards. He's of Mexican extraction,
probably 5'10,' dark wavy hair, but he's got a sleeper eye. He
can't look at you with both eyes. One eye is cockeyed. He's
kind of a slow-speaking nervous fellow. He arrested me in
Johnson's courtroom in February of 1991.
"Well arrest me! I'm going to make a record!" Mother was
standing alongside me. "You gonna arrest me TOO?" she demanded.
Megolanes was taken aback.
"No, I'm not going to arrest you!" he answered, trying to
maintain his composure.
They handcuffed me and she asked the guards about
Peterson.
"Where is he? He said Roger could speak!"
"He went out the back door," they said to her. I saw Mother
going around the corner of the bench, into the back chambers,
looking for Peterson. Peterson must have gone into the judge's
chambers, out the door, down the hall, down the steps, into the
garage-he wasn't hanging around. He not only fled the courtroom
he fled the scene. That was in December of 1994. I was cited
for contempt. Contempt can be anything they want it to be.
When you push them that hard you force their hand. They act.
When they act, you react against that. That's the dynamic.
We're supposed to be under the rule of civil law. Civil law is
that no matter what the conflict is, it can be handled in a
civil way. That has been taken out of the system. The guards
are coming and forming protective rings around these murderers
and thieves within the judiciary. What I'm doing is not civil,
it's military. I'm physically confronting them-not
violently-physically confronting them to force their hand. But
you have to know when you're pushing them that you're pushing
in the right direction, because if you don't, of course, they
will snag you on any little thing to jerk you out of what
you're doing. But the solution is simply doing what I'm doing.
I've often said if I had just a couple hundred people, we would
start going to the courthouses. I would set up meetings in each
county.
"People, if you've been victimized by any judges or public
officials, come forward and say their names." If you will say
their names in public and there is a public awareness, then
have that group act on it, going down and confronting that
public official. A group of 200. You confront them not only in
their courtrooms but you confront them wherever you see
them.
"Judge, come here. We want to talk to you about this
corruption that's going on in the court system." They have
nothing behind which to hide. They're cowards. They flee. But
to get people to come together with this common purpose and the
determination to see it through, so far, is beyond my talents.
No one is getting paid. But what they and their posterity stand
to lose is incalculable. I thought when I got arrested and they
did these things, early on, that there would be this tremendous
outcry. I thought people wouldn't stop knocking on my door.
"Roger, what can we do? How can we help?" But they run off
like barnyard chickens! They put their heads in the sand and
are just quiet! Then, all these people, when they're at some
gathering they're strutting and striding around telling you how
important they are and they've done this and they've done that.
But when you watch what they do, they have no fight in them at
all! They're totally, completely domesticated, and like any
other domestic animal, it will not fight the hand that feeds
it. The evil that has crept into our body politic is that we've
all become so domesticated that we don't want any kind of
disruption in our lives. Most people want to stay right around
the chicken coop, near the feedbag. They're conditioned to
this. They're dependent.
When Christ said 'be in it but not of it,' that's what he
meant. This is a commercial culture that we're in. If you
become of it, you become completely controlled by it so that
everything you do is money-based. When it's money-based, ask
yourself.
"Who's controlling that money system?" Well, it's the
courtroom that's controlling and protecting that money system.
Who's at the center of that court system controlling it? Well,
here's this big melanoma, Milton Brown. If you do not take that
out, it will absolutely kill-and it has killed-the body
politic. People don't realize it yet but I can tell you it's
dead as far as any civil rights you think you have. What we've
done is we've dropped a bomb down a smokestack because if they
arrest me they have to take me into that courtroom.
"You! I'll arrest you!!" They threaten and most people are
fearful.
"No, no don't arrest me!" they say. To me, it's an integral
part of my strategy.
"Please! Arrest me! Take me in!" When officer McMullen
arrested me I warned him.
"You're making a big mistake McMullen."
"Oh you really scare me Weidner," he sneered. Then we got
into court and I put him on the stand.
"Isn't it a fact, McMullen..." I started honing in on him.
They get like little kids. It's all bluff and show. When I go
into a courtroom, I take over. What they've done to me, what
I'm saying here, they cannot open their mouths.
"You've known about that and you've done nothing about it?"
They cannot defend their inaction. It's essential to get as
many people involved in this as possible because of the
enormity of it. They will squish you like a bug if you try to
fight them by yourself.
After chasing the former chief justice, Ed Peterson, out of
the courtroom, I was arrested and taken into custody but
quickly released. The trial was scheduled for March of 1995 in
Judge Dorothy Baker's courtroom. Dorothy Baker looks like a
spawned out singer in some downtown flophouse bar. Mid-to-late
forties, heavy smoker, very lined face. She may have been a
dishwater blonde at one time and probably was attractive but
she has a wasted look to her. Judge Ed Peterson, like Judge Lee
Johnson, wouldn't show up to testify. So, the only witness they
brought in was Rick Megolanes, the guard.
"You didn't leave the courtroom when instructed to do so,"
he said.
"Well, Megolanes, you're aware of this corruption and you've
done nothing about it." He got very quiet.
"Well, you're aware of this corruption. I've given you
papers about this."
"Yes..."
"You've done nothing about it?"
"No." And so, he knows about the corruption and was not
denying it. And, of course, Baker convicted me of contempt for
not leaving Judge Peterson's courtroom. But it was just on
Megolanes testimony alone that I was convicted. When she set
the sentencing I came in with a crowd of another 35 or 40
people. I saw a lot of police cars. They were all around
outside when we showed up there. Some of the people with me
reported that there were at least 65 cops in and around the
building and 3 or more snipers on the roof. Baker came into the
courtroom
"Have you read the reports, Mr. Weidner?" There is always a
pre-sentence report that is prepared.
"Dorothy, these are sham proceedings. You make your record.
I'm here to make mine." She sentenced me to 3 years bench
probation and a psychiatric evaluation. She also told me not to
come into the courthouse except on court business. That was the
restriction.
"This courtroom is closed!" BANG went the gavel and she ran
down the stairs back into her chambers.
"The courtroom is NOT closed. People do not leave this
courtroom." I said. I took one of the fellows with me.
"Go over and hold that door open." So he went over and held
the door and this security guard Rick Megolanes, looking like a
little boy who had lost his mother, was standing there looking
through the door. I had this group of 30 people there and I was
basically conducting a grand jury proceeding. I told them I was
the foreman of a special grand jury and I started speaking on
the record in that courtroom about all this corruption while
Baker was hiding in her chambers. All of a sudden the door to
the jury room opens up. It reminded me of when I was a kid,
down at the coast. There was a kind of a fish, a flounder fish,
a perch. It gave birth to live babies. They'd sorta spurt out,
one, then another and so on. I looked up and-pop, then pop,
pop-12 red-faced police officers had been hiding in the jury
room. In single file they emerged from the jury room, silently,
and walked out the courtroom exit. Everything stopped and
everybody watched. We were very orderly people sitting there
and me speaking. They thought this terrorist was going to take
over. About that time Judge Baker reentered the courtroom all
disheveled, looking like she'd been shot out of a cannon.
"I've named you Judge Baker," I said, "for aiding and
abetting. This is treason what's going on in this courtroom!"
Judge Baker held up her hand.
"Oh I'm guilty of treason. I'm guilty-" She was standing
there in her robe, not sitting behind the bench. Lou Beres,
president of the Christian Coalition was standing there
watching this go on, his mouth open in disbelief. We had
overflown the court and there was no resistance. There was no
authority figure up there holding us under control. It just
completely broke down.
"Let's leave people," I said and we walked out into the
corridor. There were at least 20 police officers down each side
of the hall. They all had egg all over their faces because of
what had just gone on in that courtroom.
"Officers, all I've been trying to do for the last 5 years
is come into this courtroom and make a record, something I have
an absolute right to do, and I'm being arrested by you police
officers on the order of these corrupt judges protecting these
thieving attorneys!" I call it the blank cow look. Have you
seen cows out in a field? They just look at you, just a blank
stare.
"Are you in charge?" I asked the sergeant. He did not want
to talk to me because he had nothing to say. They try to create
a posturing but once you break through that and they have to
start answering questions they can't do it. He just turned and
walked away. Baker had sentenced me to 3 years bench probation
but bench probation is a sham. You don't have to report to
anybody so I didn't pay any attention to it.
By this time there were guards at the doors to the
courthouse. When I first started going in there were no guards
or airport type security. April of 1995 I came into the
courthouse to file some papers, and I was arrested. They kept
me a short time, maybe overnight. I was brought back into
Baker's courtroom.
"I thought I told you not to come into the courthouse."
"But you said except on court business."
"Well, I'm ordering you not to come into the courthouse. Do
everything by mail." She wanted to keep me out of the
courthouse. She got nervous. She told me not to issue any
subpoenas. When you're a defendant in a criminal case you can
issue as many subpoenas as you want to and you don't have to
pay any fees. Any time they would come after me, prosecute me
criminally, I would issue 2 or 3 hundred subpoenas. I'd issue
all the members of the House of Representatives, all the state
senators, judges, everyone I could think of. I would give them
a subpoena to get them nervous.
In May of 1995 I gathered a group of people at the house to
go out and citizens' arrest property manager Ken Beople for
trespassing. We were going to take back that $25 million
Tri-City Industrial Park in Tualatin. Tualatin is a suburb of
Portland and the industrial park is a Kettleberg asset. I went
out with this group of people and I called the Tualatin police
department to let them know I was going to be out there. They
showed up. There was a sheriff's car there too.
"This property belongs to Kettleberg. Brown forged the
papers and stole the property. I'm going to arrest Ken Beople
here." The officers were the about the age of my kids, late
20's to early 30's. I was way over their heads. The way I was
talking, as a former prosecutor, I could tell they were a
little bit thrown off.
"Well, how 'bout if we give him a ticket?" they said to
me.
"For trespassing?"
"Yes." Ken Beople-his eyes were out of focus. When the
officer said that he would give him a ticket for trespassing on
the land he had been managing for 11 years he became totally
disoriented because he couldn't comprehend what was happening
to him. So, Beople was scheduled to appear June 7th in the
Washington County courthouse. I then went to Milton Brown's
office and gave him $40 and a subpoena.
"You're going to prison Brown." He stood there looking at
me, ashen-faced. The $40 is a witness fee. If you don't pay
them a witness fee they don't have to show up. I was going to
arraign Ken Beople in that courthouse on June 7th and I was
going to arrest Milton Brown when he came into that courthouse.
I had this big crowd of people standing outside at the
Washington County courthouse.
"Now people, when you go into this courthouse, if there is
any resistance, you just say, 'Let him speak!'" I started
seeing these heads, sheriff's deputies, all around. I thought
they were heads of security trying to intimidate me. All of a
sudden one comes up to me.
"Weidner?"
"Yes?"
"You're under arrest." Click. The cuffs went on. Uuuhh!
"No-o-o!" My frustration was I wanted to go into that
courtroom! The main entry way of Washington County courthouse
is on the east side. Around on the north side about halfway
down the building is the entrance into the jail. So off I went
and Mother and the train of people were following me down the
sidewalk.
"What's the meaning of this?!" demanded my mother. We have
her on film doing this. Some of the officers did come out of
the jail entrance and they got taken on by the crowd.
"What are you doing? We want to see the warrant!" Dal Ferry
and others were laying it to them. I didn't see that but I saw
it on the film. So, I was taken down to Multnomah county. I was
arrested on the orders of Judge Baker for a probation violation
because I had issued a subpoena to Milton Brown 10 days
earlier. There was a warrant for my arrest for a probation
violation. This is how vicious they are. They gave me a
court-appointed attorney, this little gal that had been
practicing for less than 6 months. I was using her because I
needed to have someone to file papers. I was held from June 7th
until July 16th in the Justice Center, a little over a
month.
While I was in jail there I was cited by police Lieutenant
Roy Butler of the Battleground Police Department in
Battleground, Washington for simulating process. Butler has
that kind of a grown-up football-player look to him. Crewcut,
mid-forties.
"We're not gonna have any of that crap around here...crap
goin' on..." Tough guy. Pretty good shape but not very bright.
I had subpoenaed him to a Common Law Grand Jury hearing. The
jury wanted him to come and testify concerning the Battleground
Mobile Home Park, a Kettleberg asset.
When we went to court in July on this probation violation my
court-appointed attorney went with me and I had the crowd of
people there. I was brought in heavily guarded in one of those
prison suits, cuffed until we entered the courtroom. I fired
her as we walked through the door into Dorothy Baker's
courtroom, so I could represent myself.
"All stand," the bailiff entoned when Judge Baker entered
the courtroom. The people did not stand up.
"He just fired me!" she complained. She was this little
attorney.
"Well, I want to make a record here!" I had all my
files.
"I'm canceling the hearing to have you examined to see if
you can aid and assist in your own defense," Baker
responded.
"No! I want to make a recor-" I was forced down, face down,
on the council table by the guards. They put the handcuffs on
behind me and Mother started to come up.
"You stay back or you'll get arrested too!" the guards
warned her. I was hustled out of there. Baker left the
courtroom when they started shouting at her.
"You're gonna pay for this Baker! This is tyranny!" Ed Snook
said as he left the courtroom. All the people that were in the
court were yelling.
"This is tyranny! This is tyranny! Let him speak!"
I was returned to a jail cell and held again awaiting this
mental examination. They sent over this psychologist named
Falder Colby. Falder Colby is about 6 foot one. If you just saw
him standing someplace he kinda looks like Goober, on Gomer
Pyle. He'd wear these glasses and try to sound like he was
intelligent but you could tell he was a politically correct
psychologist, who was hired by the state to do all of their
bought and paid for analysis. When they took me from the jail
bay, the general population, to the examiner, I had to go
through a strip search. You know what a strip search
is-everything they strip-to go through the indignity of
that-and he broke that up into 3 meetings so I had to go
through 3 strip searches going to these 3 meetings. The first
thing he did is he read me my Miranda warnings. He was supposed
to be my psychologist. You have a doctor/client privilege, like
a priest/client privilege, so that you can speak fully and he
can't be compelled to say what he was told in confidence. He
was supposed to be helping me figure out how to get out of the
predicament. But instead, he's coming and reading me my Miranda
rights, like a cop! He would not allow me to speak freely. He
kept interrupting, asking questions and writing things down. He
kept not listening to what I was trying to tell him.
The time came for the hearing to decide whether I could even
assist in my own defense for violating my 3-year bench
probation by issuing a subpeona to Milton Brown. By now it was
late July or early August of 1995. Fred Lenzer was prosecuting
and I was representing myself. Lenzer called Falder Colby to
the stand.
"Have you examined Mr. Weidner?"
"Yes..."
"And what is your diagnosis?"
"Well, I find that Mr. Weidner has a persecutorial delusion.
He thinks that these judges are corrupt." He testified that
because I have this delusion I am incapable of aiding and
assisting in my own defense.
"Now, Mr. Weidner, you may cross-examine." I asked him
several preliminary questions then came to the crux of the
matter.
"Colby, isn't it a fact that the only reason you stated that
I have a persecutorial delusion is because you personally do
not believe that those judges are corrupt? Isn't that a
fact?!!" His eyes got real big.
"Ye-e-s..." BANG!! Baker slammed down her gavel.
"I'm sentencing you for no longer than 180 days to the
maximum security ward of the Oregon state insane asylum in
Salem, Oregon." BANG, went her gavel a second time and she fled
the courtroom. 180 days was the maximum for contempt. Of
course, she was trying to get me salted away, that I'm nuts,
because I was doing all these crazy things. She wanted to
revoke the probation and make it jail time. Baker copied Ellis'
technique. She ordered me out of the courthouse except on
business but when I came in on business I was arrested.
So, I was chained up, shackled up, hand and foot, put in a
van, and driven down to Center Street in Salem. I was brought
into an area similar to a military depot. It's nicer than jail.
The problem was that the rooms were very noisy.
"I do not want to have any needles stuck in me," I told this
Beverly Brylski the head doctor in charge. She's an attractive
woman in her mid-to-late forties, very prissy and businesslike.
She decides whether or not you are competent.
"You say I have these delusions," I said to her. "What am I
delusional about? A delusion is a belief not based on fact.
What belief do I have that's not based on fact?"
"Well, I'm just gonna write down whatever you say," she
replied. One morning I was told not to eat anything because
there was going to be a blood draw.
"There's not going to be a blood draw. I have a doctor that
will come in if that's necessary." I went back to my cell to
get a phone number and all of a sudden these 4 big goons
appeared, held me down and a nurse came in with her bag and
drew blood. Other times I was shackled up and walked under
Center Street. On each side of Center Street there are state
buildings connected by underground passages. I was walked from
the one on the south side to the one on the north side and up
into a doctor's office. They put electrodes on a table,
electrodes on my head and flashed lights in my eyes. On another
occasion I was bundled up, chained hand and foot and taken
downtown to a doctor's office for a catscan. They walked me
through a reception area where people sat wide-eyed, looking at
my chains. No name tags on the medical personnel.
"What's you name?" No answer. I thought they were gonna cook
my brain in that catscan.
I met a few lucid people in the nuthouse. I could have
discussions with some of them. The one right next to my cell
was strange. Martyr. He changed his name to Robert Martyr.
Shortly after I got out of the District Attorney's office in
the late '70's I was appointed attorney for him. He was charged
with a murder. When I first met him in jail-his eyes-obviously
he had problems. I went over with the police officers to the
house in SE Portland and looked around where the event took
place. It was a boarding house and apparently some neighbors
came up to the door and were complaining about something. He
pulled a gun and shot them. They had a sanity hearing and they
found that he was insane. He went to the insane asylum on that
sanity hearing and he'd been there for twenty years. All of a
sudden I looked in the next cell and it's Martyr. He's still
there. I mentioned that to him. He would try to befriend and
he'd been there so long he had a full house. Everything was
like a home there. He had books. I would go down and look at
the encyclopedias. I always like to read history. Almost all
those were underlined, this heavy underlining by Martyr. But he
would be so contentious. If I said the slightest thing he'd
just fly into a rage.
"Ok, give me back...!!" so I tried to keep a distance from
him.
There were no other political prisoners there at that time
though Bill Mayhar, a political activist and brilliant
constitutional scholar, went to the same place a few years
later. One of the staff told me some news one day.
"Judge Baker called today," he said.
"When will Roger be able to come home?" Baker asked.
"He was able to come home the day he arrived," he said to
her. So, they all knew what was going on.
My supporters organized a big demonstration out in front of
the State Capitol and outside of the mental institution, down
on the street. They had a big crowd protesting my
incarceration. Alan Gustafson from the Statesman Journal,
Salem's largest newspaper, came also and I scored a couple of
front page covers on the Statesman Journal. I was all bundled
up in chains but it wasn't bad what they wrote. The major
media-Portland's largest newspaper, The Oregonian, local TV
news stations-they wouldn't touch it. One of my supporters,
Yvonne Heinrichs, a grandmother activist from Salem, drove
round and round the building, day after day, with signs
plastered all over her van. FREE ROGER WEIDNER AND ALL
POLITICAL PRISONERS. Her son had been convicted on spurious
evidence and sentenced to 9 years in prison for a sexual abuse
charge. She said she was just an outdoor woman before that,
busy in her garden until her son got put away, then she came to
life and started getting active. She had big red, white and
blue bunting on her van and some pictures of me-old ones when I
was in the service-prominently displayed on the side. Ed Snook,
editor-in-chief of the Oregon Observer newspaper, arranged to
have a skywriter come. The skywriter was the old-fashioned kind
where the plane actually writes in the sky rather than pulling
a banner. They wrote ROGER up in the sky and it's on video,
Roger in the sky.
I became a regular guest on the Jamison White talkshow
calling on a payphone from the nuthouse. The show emanated from
Portland but was broadcast nationwide. For 40 days I talked to
Jamison White every day for at least 15 minutes. One time he
called Judge Dorothy Baker on the air while I was on the other
line and she picked up the phone.
"Hello? Yes?"
"Judge Baker? This is Jamison White on talk radio in
Portland and we have Roger Weidner on the line-"
Click! He got pulled off the air shortly after that.
I was also interviewed by Inside Edition. It was a
nationally syndicated program. I got to see it when it aired.
They edited a lot out of it. There was just a very brief blip.
I think I saw it in the nuthouse so it would have been some
time before October 16th. They did not show the skywriter or
Yvonne.
I filed a petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus and the court
appointed an attorney for me, Steve Gorman, a man in his
mid-forties. He interviewed me at the nuthouse. I was taken
down into the Marion County courthouse, shackled and chained,
into the courtroom of Marion County presiding Judge Paul
Lipscomb. They had a huge crowd down there. When I entered the
courtroom it was packed. The first motion that was heard was a
motion to dismiss my petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. You
could just feel the tension in there. Everyone knew they were
trying to sock me away for good.
"Motion denied." There was so much pressure on the judge he
denied the motion. I got on the stand, shackled, sworn and I
testified about all this corruption. Judge Lipscomb sat there
beet red. When I finished he asked state defense attorney
Kathleen Cegla.
"Any questions?"
"No questions," she replied meekly. Ed Snook took the
stand.
"Was it as bad as Weidner said?" my attorney asked.
"It was worse," Ed replied.
"Any questions?" the judge asked Cegla.
"No questions." My previous court-appointed attorney was
also called as a witness to indicate the circumstances under
which Judge Baker sentenced me to the insane asylum.
"We still have the Writ of Habeas Corpus in this country,"
Judge Lipscomb ruled and he granted my writ. So I was cut
loose, brought back up to Portland, kept overnight in the drunk
tank then brought the next day, the 16th of October, into
Baker's courtroom. This time the crew from channel 12 was in
the jury box. They had a tripod and were filming the whole
thing. It had an obvious effect. I don't know who called them
to come down. The only times I received attention from the
major media were when I was disbarred or thrown in the
nuthouse.
Baker looked totally different. She spent some time at the
beauty parlor to get up for this. She was all coiffured and
saying that she sent me down there for my own good or
something. I was having some medical problems compounded by
stress. That compromises you when you have medical pain. Baker
asked me if I would comply with something. I said I would
comply with whatever it was because my attorney warned me that
if I didn't they might send me back to jail. I'd served 100 and
some odd days of her sentence but I still had time. She could
still send me back so I didn't say anything. I was released
mid-October of 1995.
CHAPTER EIGHT
In January of 1996 about 20 supporters and I went up to
Battleground, Washington to the jail to serve a complaint to
Lieutenant Butler. I had named him in a racketeering complaint.
Of course, the real reason for my presence there was to
intimidate him.
"You're not going to serve papers to anyone! Now get the
hell out of here!"
"Well, I am too," I said, so I was arrested. Butler put me
in a jail cell there in Battleground and then I was taken to
Vancouver in a police car, handcuffed. I was held there for not
too long. A day maybe. And this gal named Mello, who was
helping for awhile, happened to be arrested at the same time.
Mello looks Mexican. A little on the stocky side, late 20's,
early 30's, long hair. She used to come over to Portland with
her boyfriend because the police were harassing her over in
Vancouver. I started helping them with their problems with the
police. She would come and go from time to time. That day when
I was sitting there in a cell in Vancouver, all of a sudden, in
comes Mello. She'd been maced and she was sitting there cussing
the police.
"Mello!" And she was just like a blind person. She couldn't
see me, but she recognized my voice,
"Roger!"
Spring of 1996 we were having a Common Law hearing someplace
and I issued subpoenas without paying the fee so they weren't
valid subpoenas. I issued them to governor Kitzhaber, judges
that I've named in this conspiracy, the Attorney General and so
forth. As I was leaving the governor's office after giving the
subpoena to his clerk, a plainclothes state trooper, about 6
foot 2, probably 220 lbs came out of the governor's office and
slammed me up against the wall.
"You can't leave that subpoena! You have to pick it back
up!" he threatened.
"I'm leaving. Get the hell out of my way." He followed me
down the stairs.
"You won't even talk about this, will you." he said in a
wistful tone.
"I have nothing to say."
One night about 10 o'clock I was riding up the driveway on
my bicycle, coming home, and I saw 2 guys standing by the
window with a flashlight. The curtains were pulled inside.
"Weidner?"
"Yes?"
"You're under arrest." I couldn't see any police cars. I
couldn't see anything. It was very dark.
"Well, I want to see a warrant."
"No, we don't have to show you that."
"Well, I want to see some identification." I'd walked back
by the back door.
"No, we don't have to show you THAT." Because of their
behavior I thought these guys might not be cops. I didn't know.
If Dorothy Baker wanted me back in her courtroom all she had to
do was call. I want to go into those courtrooms any chance I
can get. I knew if they were a special squad, when they arrest
you, they do a real number on you.
"I want to tell my parents then."
"No, you're not going to do that." And so I yelled. And when
I did that, one of them took the mace and I ducked down because
I know that is so painful to get in your eyes. Fortunately, it
hit my forehead and not my eyes. It's a hot pepper. When you
put it on you can't think of anything else. My parents came to
the back door
"What's the meaning of this?" Mother demanded. They told her
to stay away or they'd arrest her too. They handcuffed me and
walked me up to the corner. They did wipe it off. But still,
the irritant, it was not something you couldn't stand but it
was certainly uncomfortable. I was taken into custody, held for
a few days and brought back in front of Judge Dorothy
Baker.
"I thought I told you not to issue subpoenas."
"Well, they were not valid subpoenas."
"Oh," she says, "I see where you're coming from. Well, I'm
ordering that you can't issue valid or invalid subpoenas."
About 3 months later, summer of 1996, a Common Law Grand
Jury was assembled in Salem and I issued notices to appear for
this grand jury. Paul Vetrus set up the meeting at a church.
Paul Vetrus is the owner of Thrillville down outside of Salem.
He and his 4 boys run that amusement park down there and they
have these carnival rides-Skymaster, that shoots people up in
the air-that they take around to these different events. I sent
out notices, not subpoenas, to appear so that I wouldn't be
bothered. One day I got a phone call.
"Mr. Weidner?"
"Yes."
"I'm with the Willamette Week and we're interested in your
story."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that." I'd received some previous
notice, though not much, in the Willamette Week, a local news
magazine. Janette had received some too. They did a hatchet job
on her but it was still notice.
"We'd like to meet with you."
"Well, we can meet down at MacDonald's." I was down there
waiting at MacDonald's and I saw this fellow come walking in
kinda hunched over talking on a mic. He saw me sitting there. I
had described myself so he'd know what I looked like. He sat
down and I handed him some papers. I noticed he was nervous. He
wasn't asking any questions.
"Well, you're obviously not a news reporter," I said. I saw
a couple of cop cars drive up outside.
"No, you're under arrest for violating this order." So, he
arrested me over the notices I had sent out. I was held for
about 10 days. I was then taken in front of Judge R.P. Jones,
who was now on the case instead of Baker. Robert P. Jones used
to be a trial attorney. He's very arrogant, self-assuming and
condescending to anyone that comes into his courtroom. He's a
state judge. Jones sentenced me to the balance of the time that
I had not served of Baker's 180-day sentence. I ended up doing
about another 35 days. I think I got 20 days off because I had
a medical problem and he did acquiesce because of a medical
problem.
It was about this time that I met Jesse Lott, cousin to
congressman Trent Lott, US Senate Majority Leader at the time.
Jesse is about 5 foot 7 I guess. He reminds me of Pecos Pete.
He's tremendously tenacious and he goes after this corruption.
He also bites off more than he can chew but I have the greatest
love for the guy. I would do anything for him because he has
this heart and he is committed.
Later, October of 1996, the attorneys for Norman Lindstedt,
Joan O'Neal and Ken Shiroshi, moved to get an injunction
against me from filing any more lawsuits. They called me a
serial litigator. Ken Shiroshi is an oriental guy, 5 foot 8, a
bit portly. Joan O'Neal is an ex-nun who was a clerk for Judge
James Ellis. She was then hired by the Bar Association's
Professional Liability fund to defend Norman Lindstedt. She was
a clerk, she went to law school, then she's working as a
defense attorney. When Joan O'Neal showed up outside the
courtroom I drew attention to her as she came walking off the
elevator.
"People, this is Joan O'Neal. She's a shameless, treacherous
thief." She walked into the courtroom. She began defending
Lindstedt and when I confronted her she started freaking
out.
"I'm demanding that Lindstedt resign right now. He has
absolutely no right to be doing what he's doing." When people
flip out and they can't control themselves they get almost
catatonic. She was looking at me and her eyes were just like
the eyes of a wild animal. I addressed Judge R.P. Jones.
"I've seen vile, treacherous, shameless, murderers, thieves
and pedophiles being given armed police escort in and out of
these courtrooms while innocent people, who've had either their
children, lands or other property shamelessly stolen from them,
have been beaten up, maced and jailed for trying to speak in
court about their injuries or witness for those who are trying
to speak. We will not tolerate that kind of corruption in this
system. If you sign that order I'm prepared to come back in
here and arrest you Judge Jones." Of course, I didn't have a
big enough crowd. When they delay you the crowd starts
dwindling. I would verbally flog the officers of the court and,
as I was doing that, turn around to see who was leaving because
as the crowd melted away I had to lessen my attack. The people
start talking, they start having to leave, they have to go to
the bathroom, they get nervous and all this. Judge Jones signed
the order.
Years later, one afternoon when Jack Salter and I were at a
copy center, I encountered Joan O'Neal. She was inside standing
there and I confronted her.
"Jack, come here. I want you to meet this crooked attorney."
She pounded on the counter and demanded.
"Call the police! Call the police!" The attendant came and
ran me off. She resigned not long after that. She's no longer
working.
In April of 1997 I was assisting Judy Lake in a property
theft case against attorney Norman Webb. I'd confronted him
previously in the courtroom, pointing him out.
"People, this is Norman Webb. He is involved in a scam." He
was doing the same thing to her that Ken Schmidt did to Chet
Jones. The mother died and left some property and the attorneys
were scooping all that up. His offices are there in Salem and
I'd gone down to serve him some papers. He was to appear in
court regarding this property. Webb came out of his office and
flared up. He put on his cobra's cape, like a cobra hisses and
rises up.
"You get off this property!" he said. "Right now! This is
my..." walking around acting officious, the hackles up on the
back of his neck.
"Get off the property! Take this OUTTA HERE!!" He drove me
off and refused to accept service. So, April 16th 1997 I was
down in Judge Dickey's courtroom in Marion county as a witness
for Judy Lake on this order for a continuing hearing on her
Petition for Injunctive Relief. Judge Dicky has this purple
drinker's pallor to him and he's as corrupt as they come. I
served papers to Norman Webb outside of the courtroom. When we
went into court I was called as a witness by Judy Lake to say
that I'd done this. Norman Webb cross-examined.
"Mr. Weidner, you are a former attorney?"
"Yes."
"You've been disbarred?"
"Yes."
"For being arrested in the court?"
"Yes."
"And Mr. Weidner, isn't it true that you have been
judicially proclaimed to be incompetent to stand trial? That
you have been psychiatrically determined to be insane?"
"No, in fact, I'm the only one in this courtroom who has
been certified to be sane!" They just looked blank. It sucked
all the wind out of them. My supporters, Lou Sutton and others
were there stifling laughter.
I also went down to Clatsop County with Judy for a
deposition on her case. I was in another court hearing with
Judge Kahlberer sitting. Judge Dicky started to walk in and I
pointed to him.
"Dicky is as corrupt as they come," I said. Dicky was
standing in the doorway.
"He just said I was corrupt!" He just started whining like a
little kid that I was saying that he was corrupt. On another
occasion when he was on the bench, when he came in, we didn't
stand up.
"I'm going to go out of this court and I'm going to come in
again and I expect everyone to be standing," he says. So he
left the courtroom and reentered swirling his robes and we're
all still sitting there.
"I do not stand up in these corrupt courts," I said. I'm
talking about how corrupt they are and, of course, they can't
come out and deny it.
"Well, are you calling me-" I know what I'd say if they
called me that.
"What are you talking about, you son-of-a-bitch? Tell me
what you're talking about! I'm going to have you in court
tomorrow! You calling me corrupt?!! We'll see who..."
With them, you call them that, and they have to try to do
something so they will find something that you've done, some
rule you've broken, some way to discredit you.
In Spring of 1997 we organized a rally down at the State
Capitol to protest this corruption that's going on. I put an ad
in the paper inviting people who had lost something to corrupt
public officials to come to the rally. During that
demonstration a fellow named Larry Carver brought this effigy.
His daughter was taken by Kay Toran, supervisor of the Child
Services Division, a branch of the welfare department. Kay
Toran is black so he brought a black dummy, a scaffold and hung
her in effigy. It's been said that this was the first time in
the history of the United States that a black woman was hung in
effigy. It wasn't the fact that she was black it was the fact
that she was taking people's children, but she just happened to
be black. They tried to make that a racial event, all those gay
men legislators down there at the Capitol. They totally distort
anything. They are incapable of dealing with truth. Absolutely
incapable. There are these ardent feminists down there like
Kate Brown. She is touted as this most effective legislator.
She and Vera Katz and all the rest of them, this cadre, this
New World Order crowd, the gal that's running for governor,
Beverly Stein, they're all cut of the same mold. Anything that
is federal government, NWO, they are pushing. They can do no
wrong in the press but the truth is absolutely repugnant to
them. They've been conditioned to think this politically
correct thought process that is strictly NWO.
We were outside on the steps of the Capitol and the
Legislature was in session inside. They could observe the rally
on their TV monitors. When Larry Carver hung a black woman in
effigy on the Capitol steps the whole House of Representatives
was called into recess, the Legislature adjourned and everybody
came running outside. I can't think of the name of the fellow
that was leading the charge but he is an openly admitted gay
man, a Barney Frank sort of a guy. He came out and attacked
Larry Carver on the steps of the Capitol. There were 5 of them
but he was the ringleader. These legislators roughed Larry up
and ripped that effigy out of his hand. Larry went after them
and demanded they give it back and there they were, yanking
this black dummy back and forth. It was incredible. It was all
on camera too because the TV news station was there and we were
filming also. The TV news did run the story but they edited it
and made it look like we were a racist group out there. That
was the spin. So, we decided to file a suit against these 5
legislators.
The fact that this is going on and people are so mindless of
it, that's what's so shocking. If you go around here and ask
all of these neighbors they have no idea of any of this.
"Well, Roger's fighting something.I don't know." That's what
they would say.
It was also at that rally that I met Will and Pamela Gaston.
Will is a 76-year-old hippie. He wants to be in charge. He
always wants to be telling you what HE thinks, but if he can
get someone else to do the work, he will. He is fighting the
fight though and I like him, personally. Before they met me
Will would sit in the courtroom and Pam couldn't even come in
and sit with him. Will and Pam were struggling to retrieve his
little daughter Melissa from the clutches of Kay Toran and the
Child Services Division. I didn't know how corrupt the Child
Services Division was. I knew there were a lot of problems with
it but I didn't realize the degree. What I was concerned about
was whether they were willing to fight. When I first got
involved Will was going to court for termination of parental
rights hearings.
"You are going to have to go on the offensive against this
to have any success at all," I told them.
We called a second rally in the Fall of 1997. About 300
people came. This time Mike Rinkes came down with his flatbed
truck and he had 5 hangman's nooses sporting effigies. George
Hanson, the former congressman, came over from Idaho. Hanson is
a big man, about 6 foot 2 or 3, 240-50 pounds. He had been put
through all that abuse by the federal government and so he was
hurting. He came down and spoke at our meeting but because of
his physical condition I think he was playing it easy. We had 2
meetings where he showed up, one at Gladstone and then down in
Salem. Big crowd. We had a press rally there and then we went
around through the Capitol serving those complaints, all 300 of
us. The complaints contained civil rights violations against
those 5 legislators that had been involved in tearing down
Larry Carver's effigy. All the state troopers were opening the
doors for us like waiters in some high class restaurant because
this sea of humanity was coming through the State Capitol,
taking it back. We were getting respect because we had more
numbers.
Attorney Terry McCauley handled the case. Ed Snook was
working with McCauley so he got several other people involved
with McCauley but there were a lot of angry and upset people
because McCauley would take these cases, would take the money
and then he wouldn't do anything. Carver's case was dismissed
and McCauley was supposed to file an appeal. There was a
settlement offer of over a million dollars that came in during
the interim but McCauley neglected to file the appeal within
the 30 day limit so the dismissal became final.
In 1998 I started going to court with Pam Gaston regularly.
Pam Gaston, at one time, was an attractive gal. She is a little
overweight. I went out to Pam's house quite a bit. She had the
computer out there and I would work over her legal papers not
so much to make sure they were right but to make sure they were
focussed because she tends to repeat herself. I've been to
court with the Gastons 15 or 20 times at least.
I told them how to confront. I taught her how to go into
court and make a record. In the beginning she would go in and
just start emotionally venting. I taught them there is a format
that is in place and how to put on evidence. If the other side
speaks you don't have to be interrupting what they're saying.
You will be given a chance to respond to anything that they
say. One party puts on evidence then the other party is given a
chance to respond. If the judge tries to shut you down you tell
him.
"I want to make an offer of proof!" That's how you put on
evidence in a case. I told her that it's important to be the
moving party when you come into court. If you come in
defending, in a corrupt system, then you have to explain other
issues.
"We're not going to be talking about that," the judge will
say. "All we're talking about is this issue that you've been
charged with," he'll tell you when you're coming in as a
defendant.
So, you want to be coming in as the moving party, in a
corrupt system. Be the aggressor. The best thing is, if someone
files something against you, you file a complaint. You file to
strike the action they have filed or do something to it. You've
filed a document and any time you file something then you can
come in and speak about what it is that you filed. The party
that has filed the document is the moving party so they are the
first to speak. They state why they did this and all and then
the judge will ask.
"Do you want to make a response?" and you respond to that if
you are the respondent.
When the Gastons first started going into court it was Will
who spoke. Pam was backing him up. But then she became more and
more involved in these cases and started doing most of the
speaking. He would have a difficult time speaking because he
was hard of hearing. He was not as deft as Pam was at picking
up what I was trying to explain. He'd just get up, get
emotional and start saying things and telling how intelligent
he was. He always got in the fact that he had 140 IQ.
When they first filed an action against the state on those
films we went in with a crowd of people. The foster mother,
Hazel Spees, had made pornographic films of Will's little
5-year-old daughter Melissa. The Gastons found out about the
video when a box of files mysteriously turned up on their
porch. Among the documents was Hazel Spees' detailed
confession. She had been instructed to make the video by Larry
Lawson a Child Services Division supervisor. When Spees
delivered the videos to Lawson he refused to give her a letter
of protection admitting his complicity. So, she wrote a
confession describing the deed and detailing his part in it.
She wasn't going down alone. Involving the all powerful state
was her best protection.
Paul Lipscomb was the judge. The DA, William Howell, the
Deputy Attorney General and all the court personnel were so
intimidated by the crowd that they waited in the side room
until there were police officers in the courtroom. They were
given an armed guard escort into the courtroom. I went up and
asked this DA Howell his name. He wouldn't give me his name.
The judges were very hostile, very contrary to them, obviously
very corrupt. In one of the hearings, because of the heat we
were putting on the system, the judge let Pam have a jury
trial.
In the jury trial I had them assert, as an affirmative
defense, this conspiracy that was ongoing, in answer to the
criminal complaint, the contempt that was filed against them.
They asserted, and Judge Ertsgaard allowed them to assert, as
an affirmative defense, that they were the victims of a
conspiracy. They had been cited for contempt for printing their
little newspaper A Voice For Children. They had printed
excerpts of the confession of Hazel Spees and demonstrated out
in front of the school in Monitor, Oregon where Spees was a
grade school teacher, handing out newspapers. At the end of the
trial the judge instructed the jury on conspiracy. Only if they
found that these judges, police, caseworkers, attorneys, foster
mother and other public officials were, in fact, involved in
this conspiracy, knowingly, only then could the jury find the
Gastons not guilty. The judge basically instructed the jury
that they must find the Gastons guilty because they admitted
that they had violated the restraining order barring them from
printing a newspaper. Only if they found, by a preponderance of
the evidence, that there was a conspiracy involving these
judges, and it had to be intentional, only then could they find
the Gastons not guilty. The jury ruled in favor of the Gastons.
They found that the police, judges, attorneys, caseworkers,
foster mother, and other public officials were conspiring
against the Gastons. It was a petit jury of six and five of the
six jurors were state employees.
"Those same facts," I told Pam, "file a racketeering
complaint that contains the allegations that you just proved in
this contempt complaint because it's already been decided. File
a separate action against them then move for Summary Judgment
on that action." And they did it.
Pam Gaston is relentless in her drive to correct what she
sees as a horrible victimization that they have been put
through but she is a totally, completely controlling person.
She is relentless and she will attack, without reservation,
anyone. I don't think there's any person that she stands aside
for. She has no ability to lead a group though because she runs
everything like a tyrant. It has to be her way and she does not
encourage or recognize anyone else's opinion. That is very
dangerous to a group. It's almost fatal to this kind of patriot
movement because she will attack most viciously those who have
helped her the most.
Everything that we're doing should be handled by the
District Attorney because it's a criminal matter what's going
on here. But we're bound by the rules of civil procedure when
we come into court. Only the District Attorney can bring
criminal matters. The racketeering procedure was intended to
make attorney generals out of private citizens because it's a
private citizen charging criminal behavior on the other side.
That's what a racketeering complaint is. But the legislature
jumped on that and restricted the use of the racketeering
statutes so it has to involve the sale of real estate. Probably
it was motivated by my racketeering complaints because I heard
once that Senate Bill whatever was called the Weidner
Amendment. The paperwork they had in there was my
paperwork.
What I see has happened to our society is that people have
become detached. They've become so preoccupied in their own
little pursuits that they've become totally detached from
government. There is this cadre now of these NWO people,
primarily from the large metropolitan areas. The newspapers and
the media are all owned and controlled by NWO people.
Politicians get the play in the press and the people that
oppose them, like George Hanson, congressman from Idaho, and
state legislator Gary George, the government jumps on them for
the slightest little thing, like they're jumping on me for the
slightest little thing. This is how distorted it is.
CHAPTER NINE
The hostility against me had ended, basically. They stopped
arresting me because that was what I was looking for. That gave
me an opportunity to go into court. But I didn't want to be
doing 6 months. I'd do a day a minute but not a month a
minute!
Ed Snook's newspaper the Oregon Observer was publishing the
stories and Jesse Lott had gotten involved. We were really
turning up the heat bigtime. Jesse's name is well known because
of his cousin Trent Lott and Jesse is very active in Oregon
politics. The politicians were avoiding me. They would talk to
me but they would avoid me because when I'm around I'm talking
about the corruption. When you're talking about the corruption
to a politician they don't like to hear that because they have
a duty to do something about it. It's almost like you have BO
or something. They all just drift off. This is what is so
shocking to me. This tacit acknowledgment that this corruption
is going on.
Jesse is tremendous at pigeonholing and Jesse could get
money from the Republican Central Committee for their
campaigns. Trent Lott told the chairman to get money out there
to Smith when Smith was running for office. When Jesse worked
on the campaign for Victor Hoffer for Attorney General, he was
the campaign manager. He won more counties than Hardy Myers did
and he only had $10, 000 to work with. But he didn't win the
big counties. He is tireless as a campaigner. He's very good
dealing with people, Jesse is, and particularly politicians. He
has no hesitation at all and because of his name they listen to
him. Trent Lott worked with Jesse and he said Jesse could use
his name too. He told him to be careful.
Spring of 1998 I won the nomination for governor of Oregon
on the Reform Party ticket. I found out the Reform Party had
been a power to be reckoned with but because of the internal
squabbling it had fallen apart. I got my supporters to create
the county chapters, get 4, 5, 6 people together, form a
committee and choose their officers. I had people from
different counties register as the chairman of the Reform Party
in those counties and so I stacked the convention and got the
nomination. I tried to get involved in the gubernatorial
debates but I was only allowed to participate in a few of them.
My run for governor was more to draw attention to and get
political support for what I was doing, rather than to actually
be governor. My whole purpose is to try to bring mass exposure
onto the courtrooms. They say it's like bringing the candy man
into the sun. When you go after the money powers in that
courthouse, when people start talking and getting angry out in
the distance, the closer they get to that courthouse the more
timid they become. It's like there's some sort of radioactive
field that keeps people from coming into the courtroom with
that same kind of presence that they have out on the hustings.
Out there they strut. Pam's the only one I know. When she walks
into court she bristles. She's got the hackles up and goes
after them.
I knew I could not be governor although the possibility
exists that all of a sudden someone may get enthused and come
up with a million or 2 million dollars so I could get out my
message. If people knew what I was doing they would carry me
into that governor's office on a landslide victory. But it's
that frustration of trying to educate the public as to the
dangers that are in existence. They are in denial, most people
are.
There was a debate at Rippling River. I was on the platform
with Sizemore and Kitzhaber and was allowed to speak for 5
minutes, which was surprising to me. One time I went down to a
school and spoke to a high school student body in Philomath,
OR. It's difficult because there's no funding. I'm doing this
on a shoestring and there's no staff to do the things that need
to be done. I got on quite a few talkshows. It had the effect
that I wanted it to have. I won 10,000 votes so it raised my
visibility. Being attacked by the system was just incredible as
was dealing with Janette Kent, who was a wild card herself. So
you have these wild cards that you're dealing with and you're
trying to create a focus.
"People, focus. This is the issue." There are so many
diversions I'm not able to focus people's attention. They get
nervous when I come around and start talking to them because
they don't want to be hearing these things that I'm saying.
It's very fatiguing.
The Reform Party had meetings. They were not well attended.
We went to Eugene a few times, Brownsville, Roseburg, 30 or 40
people. You don't get the crowds. Every time there's a crowd
there's someone up there who wants to be in charge.
In September 1999 I went to court with Pam and Will Gaston
on their racketeering complaint. They brought in this county
Judge Fred Avera from a different county. He has a little bit
of a badger look, the starey badger-eyed look, his eyes darting
at you.
"Are these courts of constitutional due process?" She was
confronting the judge. Pam was great at doing that. He got real
quiet.
"Yes," he whispered. He seemed like this little boy caught
with his hand in the cookie jar. Then he'd put back on the
persona.
"...but I'm going to be dismissing..." He said it was
frivolous and dismissed it. We all got up and walked out as
soon as he said that.
The next event was they were going to terminate the Gastons'
parental rights. Will was back in front of Fred Avera again. At
the end the judge addressed Will.
"Is there anything else you want to say Mr. Gaston?" He
asked him the wrong thing. Will stood up.
"Yes, I'm arresting you Judge Avera for misprision of a
felony." When he said that all the guards came in.
"Stand up," I told everyone. When the guards come in you
must stand up to challenge them, that is, all of you together.
Whenever you are in the courtroom and they come in in a
threatening manner you stand up as a group to confront them.
That's an extremely important point because remember, all the
courtroom is, it's a place to make a public record of the facts
in your particular case. Will finished reciting the script for
the citizens' arrest of a judge, court was adjourned and we
were leaving. The guards were all postured standing in military
type positions, threatening positions.
"Get their names, all these officers names here," I
said.
"I told you to get the hell out of here Weidner," this
officer McMullen growled at me. McMullen's a very dour, slight
built guy about 5 foot 10, sandy-colored hair, looks like
Snoopy with this sad look on his face, this hard look all the
time. I think he's got kind of a small man's complex. He wants
to be throwing his weight around, threatening and
intimidating
"I'm leaving, McMullen, but these are public buildings and
I'll leave when I want to leave." He came up to me.
"I'm sick and tired of you Weidner," and he spun me around,
arrested me and took me into custody.
"You're making a big mistake McMullen."
"Oh you really scare me Weidner," he sneered. And so, I was
arrested at the Gastons' trial and taken out to the Almsville
facility on the outskirts of Salem. I was only held 3 or 4
hours and released but I had no ride because I was riding with
someone who had to go someplace else. So I had to walk from
Almsville into Lancaster, maybe a couple of miles, no big deal.
I called Yvonne and she came and got me.
The trial took place in February of 2000 at the Marion
County Courthouse in Salem. They brought in Judge Deanna
Darling from Portland. Deanna Darling is about 5 foot 6,
Clackamas County juvenile judge, seems very savvy, knows what's
going on. She's an Oregon Law Commission member, sympathetic to
Pam and seems to have an awareness to her. The courtroom was
packed with my supporters. This was a criminal prosecution.
Everyone was there because of the corruption that's going on.
They were not there to watch the Saturday matinee.
The charge was trespassing. There was no order for me to
stay out of that courthouse but officer McMullen said that he
had ordered me out of the courthouse, thus, I was charged with
trespassing because I did not immediately comply. They brought
in this little Cynthia Botsios to prosecute. She was not an
aggressive, snarling feminist like Martha Hicks or Kathleen
Cegla. She had a slim build and a kind of a female sensitivity
to her. She looked like she should be behind a typewriter not
in the wage of battle representing the state of Oregon and all
these attorneys and judges that I was suing. They assign my
cases to a different attorney every time because the ones that
have been in the courtroom with me before don't want to come
back in again. She was sitting next to me at the council table
when she came in because she was the only attorney there to
quash the subpoenas and the courtroom was so full of people the
guards were sitting up there right on the front bench too.
In a criminal case you can issue subpoenas without a fee so
any time they would prosecute me on any criminal charge I would
serve the governor, these judges and everyone with subpoenas.
In the past they've always filed a motion to quash them and the
judge would grant it. Well this time I subpoenaed all these
witnesses and 19 public officials and when Botsios moved to
quash the subpoenas Judge Deanna Darling denied the
motions.
"You tell your clients to stand-by," she said to Cynthia
Botsios, the Assistant Attorney General representing all these
state officials. State officials have attorneys representing
them for free. The Attorney General's office represents them
for nothing. The Attorney General's office is supposed to be
enforcing the law. It is not supposed to be the defense for a
bunch of crooked public employees.
While I was reading my statement Botsios was sitting there
literally drawn up in the fetal position. It's what we're
doing. We're subpoenaing all these public officials and we're
saying this is a conspiracy. We've put enough heat on the court
system so that Judge Darling is not going to get in the middle
of that. She was being accommodating to us.
Officer McMullen prosecuted me. He's not a member of the Bar
but on traffic or minor infractions police officers will
prosecute. When he began his prosecution he was just parroting
why he had arrested me. Once that started Botsios got up and
left because she wasn't there to prosecute. McMullen called
this big heavy-set guard John Schulz, who witnessed me being
arrested. Then he called a gal who worked at the security
checkpoint in the entry way to the courthouse to the stand to
testify. He did not question me on the stand. After all that
McMullen got on the stand. When he got through testifying then
I cross-examined him. He couldn't remember facts, details or
anything else. I got him inconsistent with his testimony. When
they concluded I didn't move to make any motions to dismiss the
charges because I wanted to call my witnesses. I wanted to get
Pam on the stand.
"Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" says Judge Darling. "I'm
dismissing this for insufficient evidence." To keep me from
making a record she dismissed it.
August 16th or 17th of 2000 I had filed a suit for
Declaratory Judgment against Janette Kent and Milton Brown just
to have my interest declared in the estate. I was suing Janette
Kent. She thought I was actually against her but I was just
using this as a ploy, a tactic to get them into court. The case
was heard in Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, out in Washington
County. The guards were very nice because we had a huge crowd,
a packed courtroom, over 80 supporters. This was the first time
I was ever allowed to make a full record. It had been 12 years
since I was first hired to work on the Kettleberg case. The
presiding judge was Tom Kohl. You can tell he's a savvy guy. I
think he prides himself on his integrity. He allowed me to
speak openly in his court so I have nothing critical to say of
Tom Kohl.
The issue was the transferring of the case back to Multnomah
county. I was trying to keep it there in Washington county. I
testified for 45 minutes about why I could not get a fair
hearing in Multnomah county. I have named so many of the
Multnomah county judges, including presiding Judge Ellis, in a
racketeering complaint, that prejudice would make it impossible
for me to get a fair hearing. When I finished the people gave
me a standing ovation in that courtroom. I'd gone from being
shackled and chained in a nuthouse to a standing ovation in
court.
I filed another racketeering complaint against McMullen
naming McMullen and his whole crowd in the complaint. I filed
it out in Clackamas county and it went to Judge Hollie Pihl's
court in September of 2000. Hollie Pihl must be in his
mid-seventies. He looks like he's done too much drinking in his
life. When he was on the bench he was cordial but mechanical.
He has a very red almost purplish hue to his face.
McMullen was the lead defendant because they had dismissed
that trespassing action against me. I still wanted to call all
those witnesses. I had 65 people, big crowd, and they came from
all over the state. The 15 attorneys representing the 28
defendants all were hiding in the jury room before the hearing
because all 65 of us were in the courtroom. When they came into
the courtroom they all came in together. They were afraid of
being physically confronted. I filed this racketeering
complaint, malicious prosecution action, against the governor,
11 judges and 28 defendants in all. Their response to my
pleading was that the statute of limitations had run out so the
complaint itself was too late in filing. They filed a motion to
dismiss it saying it was too late and that the matters had
already been heard many times in many other courts.
"It's not too late. I've never been heard," I said. They
spoke briefly then I got up on the stand and for an hour and 45
minutes, under oath, laid out all of this murder, theft,
forgery, fraud, all of it and these attorneys looked like I was
throwing rocks at them, just twitching and turning while I was
describing all this criminal conduct. Finally I finished and
made my ending remarks.
"...and not one of these attorneys will question the
truthfulness of anything I say about the criminal conduct of
their clients." Judge Hollie Pihl sat there like a burnt
worm.
"Do you have any questions?" he asked the 15 attorneys for
the other side.
"No questions."
Judge Hollie Pihl out in Clackamas county is obviously a
very weak person because to hear all that he heard, with the
other side not challenging any of it, he quashed all the
subpoenas and granted the motion to dismiss my complaint.
"Mr. Weidner has failed to state facts sufficient to
constitute a claim," he said.
"I don't know what more I could possibly say," I said.
I had documents to back up everything. Every thing I said
I've filed in memorandums, complaints and supporting documents,
where I lay it out in narrative form.
Something is not legally the truth until it's been
established in a courtroom. You have an allegation of
something, but once you go into a courtroom and give sworn
testimony, stating a fact and it's not disputed, that is a
conclusive fact. And that is binding on all subsequent
litigation involving the same parties that were involved in the
case because it's been asserted and it has not been disputed.
Or, if it has been disputed, it's been decided by the jury.
That is how the system is set up to operate. Of course it
doesn't operate that way any more.
It's so criminal what they're doing to me. I could just take
a net and scoop 'em up, any one of them and throw them in jail
because they all are involved in this. They know it's going on.
But it's so widespread the whole system is corrupted. That's
the problem, trying to get the government to prosecute. All I'm
doing is what the government should be doing, what they're paid
to do. If I'm in an adversary proceeding in court I'm going to
discredit the other side because unless I impeach it, that
sworn testimony is conclusive proof of the matter asserted.
When they don't challenge it, it's proof. Ordinarily a person
doesn't get up on the stand and testify without being asked
questions. That's not normal. When I go into court it's a given
that I'm going to testify. No one plays attorney for me, I just
take over. It's a known when you go to court that you get to
get up and testify. Absolutely. The reason I am in court is to
make that record.
Next, Eric Kekel filed charges against me because of this
action I brought out in Clackamas county. I violated Judge Ed
Peterson's injunction forbidding me to file any more
complaints. Eric Kekel is well-groomed and mindful of his
appearance. Pleadings he does well and his paperwork is ok. He
reminds me of a dapper, slick attorney type, full head of hair
combed back on the sides. He's Norman Lindstedt's attorney.
Judge Frank Bearden ordered a reentered judgment, a court
order, barring me from filing any more lawsuits. Something had
been defective so they reentered it, Lindstedt and that gang.
Kekel was moving to hold me in contempt of that order. Lawfully
they can't bar a person from filing lawsuits but they do it.
The only reason I've been filing them is because they stole the
property and the system has been protecting the thieves by
attacking me.
They filed a motion to move it back into Multnomah county.
The hearing took place out in Judge Ellen Rosenblum's court
February 21, 2001. Ellen Rosenblum is a politically correct
yuppie and a Kitzhaber appointee. She looks like a secretary.
There is an officious, postured correctness about her. She
walks very erect, is in her mid-forties and has an attractive
appearance but she's a political kind of attorney and judge.
So, I asked Gary George, the chairman of the Government
Oversight Committee, if he would write to Rosenblum to see if
we could video it because I wanted to put the heat on them.
Senator Gary George is about 6'2, late '50's, big man, a farmer
from Newburg, very pleasant, very attentive when you're
speaking to him. Just an outstanding person. He has a little
nervousness about him when he's talking to you. But he's very
concerned about all of this.
"I'm as dumb as dirt when it comes to these legal matters,"
he told me one time.
Rosenblum told George that he couldn't video, only the media
could. So, Ed Snook of the Oregon Observer called. She said not
video but still pictures were ok. I had a pretty good crowd of
35 or 40 people down there. All of them got dressed up in
suits, a lot of the fellows, to make it look more impressive.
She let me take a picture beforehand of the group in the
courtroom, so, before it started, Carlos Lucero got up there
and took the still pictures.
Carlos is a 20th generation Spaniard. He got in touch with
me because he was raided by the police. They had the wrong
office and raided him by mistake, handcuffed him and
confiscated his equipment. He got me involved helping him to
get those charges dismissed. We still haven't retrieved his
property but we did get the charges dismissed. He was a
candidate for State Treasurer. Great guy. Has a nice
personality.
Charles Markley, Brown's attorney, held up the briefcase in
front of his face when he was photographed. Brown and Lindstedt
and that whole group of attorneys are together. They were
trying to get me to be held in contempt. Charles Markley is
treacherous. He tries to get the scrubbed choir boy look like
Norman Lindstedt and David Buono but he's as treacherous and as
dangerous as they come. He knows that Brown is a murderer and a
thief. When he showed up with Brown out at Tri-City I openly
referred to him as the jackal. He lives off of the kill of
Milton Brown.
When I go into the courtroom, if it's a situation where I
don't want to get the hostility of the judge right from the
start, I stay standing until the judge comes in. I tell people
just to stay standing until she comes in so there's no show of
respect for the judge. When court opened that day I did not
make a motion, I was just responding, but I laid out a
memorandum that documented all that I was saying. Eric Kekel
put on his argument, the reason why I had to be stopped from
doing all of this. He said I was a serial litigator and that
enough is enough. When he finished I got on the stand and made
what was probably a 45 minute to an hour delivery I laid all of
this out, went through basically the same story. Attorneys
Norman Lindstedt, Charles Markley, Ken Shiroshi, David
Williams, Eric Kekel, 6 or 7 attorneys arrayed against me were
sitting there twitching again. They try to look normal but they
have nothing to say. It's like they're robbing the banks and
they're beating up and raping the women and they don't deny it,
they just try to look nonplussed. They want to get it over with
as quickly as possible and they hope that it doesn't penetrate
and people do not react to it. They try to keep a straight
face, groaning and turning in their seats while I'm talking
about how corrupt their clients are. They were all defending
Norman Lindstedt and Milton Brown, wanting to stop me from
filing any more cases. The outrageousness of it is that the
whole idea of a civil system is that you come in, you prove
something and then there is government action to enforce what
you have proven. That's the whole idea. Then the judge, who is
a state employee, orders the remedy based on the law that
applies to those facts. When I was finished saying how corrupt
Norman Lindstedt was I pointed at him.
"...and I'm going to arrest Norman Lindstedt when I get off
this stand." I got off the stand and was back at the council
table. There was some other conversation going on between the
judge and an attorney. Schneider, this guard, was sitting
alongside fairly close to me. Schneider has gray hair, he's
about 6 foot, 210 pounds but I think he trained at the Adolph
Eichman School for Police Officers. He's a nazi. You're
supposed to be subservient when you're around him. He's
supposed to be in charge. If you tell him he's a public
employee he doesn't like to hear that.
"Who's in charge here?" I asked Schneider.
"If you try to arrest anyone Weidner I'm going to arrest
you!"
"Well, what are you going to arrest me for Schneider?"
"I'm going to arrest you for rioting!" So I stood and told
the judge.
"He's just threatened to arrest me."
"No one's going to be arresting anyone in here," said Judge
Rosenblum. "I'm denying the motion to hold Mr. Weidner in
contempt. I'm going to give you one more chance Mr. Weidner. I
am ordering you not to file any more litigation. Court
Adjourned."
We were all standing there waiting to leave and Lindstedt's
was acting like a trapped animal. I walked over towards
Lindstedt and Schneider jumped between us in this kind of a
martial art posture. There were 20 or 30 of us between
Lindstedt and the door and Lindstedt was pacing back and forth
like a nervous, caged animal. They sent in 4 armed deputies and
gave him escort service out of there. If only I could get the
crowd to come around me and go forward. But when I say that
everyone starts getting real limp because they don't
understand, although they are beginning to see and comprehend.
It's so frustrating for me because at all of these meetings
they're so strident and militaristic.
"...and there'll be a day they'll take this cold
finger-hands off the gun..!" and they talk all that stuff. But
you get them in the courtroom and some little feminist attorney
is there and they become totally paralyzed.
By this time I had appeared and testified before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, an eight or ten member panel, one or two
joint House/Senate Judiciary Committees, the Government
Oversight Committee and the Oregon Law Commission, blasting
this corruption at every turn. Every time we were going into
court and we were getting actions dismissed-the orders of
Johnson in dismissing, Cinoceros in dismissing-and there would
be an appeal to the Court of Appeals, fighting it, I would file
compulsory process into the Supreme Court. This goes back to
when we first started. I do the same thing there as I do in
court. I begin a monologue and they just let me go hoping I
will get off quickly. They don't ask me any questions. State
Senator Gary George has been very supportive of this. He's the
only one down there that has been supportive. He was the
chairman of the Government Oversight Committee and because of
the squeeze he was putting on them, because of his activities,
Derfler removed him from all of his committee assignments.
Derfler is the Senate president and represents the Senate
district that includes the Salem area. Pleasant guy but no
backbone.
Originally I was just working with Janette Kent so
everything was filed through her. I filed several Writs of
Mandamus to compel Lee Johnson to have a hearing to remove
Norman Lindstedt. That was the lock they had on it. With
Lindstedt controlling the estate and Johnson the court, and
Brown controlling both of them, they were just running this
whole case right through the court process and we had no
recourse. It was so obvious. The hearing to remove
Lindstedt-they just refused to have it. It was denied without a
hearing. Everything I filed, trying to compel them to do
something, was dismissed. Without exception, they were all
denied without a hearing.
CHAPTER TEN
In December, 2000, I wanted to do the same thing at the
Tri-County Mobile Home Park, another Kettleberg asset in
Clackamas, that we had done in Tualatin at the Tri-City
Industrial Park. Only this time, not arrest anyone, just take
over the park, set up an office and divert the rental money
flow into a trust. So Jesse and I decided to do it.
"Ok Roger, you handle the legal and I'll handle the
political." He tried to get Janette to sign it over but she
refused.
"Well, I'll just give you part of mine," I said. So, we went
out to that park with about 20 people. We notified the sheriffs
and the police department that we were going out there to do it
and when we showed up there was no resistance. The park has 100
mobile homes paying $300 a month space rent so that is a
$30,000 cash flow. We parked Will Gaston's trailor on there
naming it the Offices of Roger Weidner, Janette Kent and Jesse
Lott. We took over.
Jesse and Lou Sutton went to work on their own remodeling,
going around and talking to the tenants. Lou Sutton is 70 years
old and hails from Scapoose out on the Columbia River. He's
bald, good-looking guy, 5'10, ordinary frame, you can tell he
works with his hands. He made his living remodeling 11 houses
that he rented and sold. Lou is a hard-working guy. Very
responsible. Very civic-minded. Upset about what's going on and
doing something about it. I met him about 5 years ago when I
was someplace speaking to a group and he became interested in
what I was saying. He's been very supportive of what we've been
doing fighting this corruption.
I think Jesse thought he had an inside track because of his
political clout and because he was tied in with Kennemer,
chairman of the Clackamas county Board of Commissioners. He has
a good rapport out there. Jesse was going to run that on his
own, collect the rents, but he was not consulting with me on
how he was handling this. Because of the stress of all this,
any time somebody takes on a responsibility to do something I
support him unless I see that he's going just totally,
completely in the wrong direction. Jesse and Lou were there
constantly for about 3 months and that was great. They got one
of these trailors fixed up really nice inside and turned it
into an office. He wasn't getting all the rents, he was getting
only a few of them. Most of the people were still paying the
rent to Brown. Jesse and Lou went to Brown's office to speak
with Brown but he wouldn't talk to them.
Finally, 4 months later Milton Brown filed an FED action to
get Jesse out of there. That's a landlord's action against a
tenant. I thought, because of the clout that had built up, no
judge would hear it. May 8th it was heard in Judge Herndon's
courtroom out in Clackamas county. I was stunned. Herndon had
no business hearing that case at all because he had been
affidavited and because he had been involved previously with
the Kettleberg case. Herndon used to be a trial attorney. He's
about 5 foot 10, makes a good personal appearance, but very
treacherous and very corrupt.
There was a crowd of us there. Jesse didn't consult with me
at all. He was going to handle this thing on his own. He was
talking to Gustafson more than he was talking to me. Terry
Gustafson is the former District Attorney of Clackamas County.
Jesse's strategy was to file a complaint against Herndon just a
few minutes before he went into the courtroom on this hearing,
thinking that would back Herndon off. But when he went into the
court he was not prepared to deal with Herndon coming down on
him. Ordinarily, when a lay person is acting as his own
attorney the judge will be considerate. Herndon wasn't being
considerate. Herndon was snapping at him because he wasn't
asking questions, he was making statements.
"NO, that's not how you do this!!" So, I wrote up some
questions and had Jesse call me as a witness and ask me these
questions. He asked me the questions that I'd given him about
this and about the documents.
"All these documents that have been signed and entered in
this case are in furtherance of this fraud on the court and on
the Kettleberg estate. They have no credibility at all," I
said. I went through these documents naming them, the document
and who signed it, and what was the date of it. One of the
documents was Herndon's own document! Herndon didn't say
anything when I called his own document a fraud. He should have
recused himself. There was no way in the world he could hear
this case. I was laying out this whole story again, on the
record, sworn testimony and when I finished Herndon asked
Charles Markley, Milton Brown's attorney, if he had any
questions.
"No questions."
So, I'm giving sworn, undisputed testimony about the fraud
and criminal conduct of Markley's client, there is no evidence
to the contrary and Michael Gentry, their only witness, was
impeached. Gentry had been the attorney for one of the Personal
Representatives, Carolyn Brune. When Herndon got up and left
the court for a minute Jesse turned to confront Gentry.
"You're a no good rotten thief, Gentry! Deny it!" And he
stood silent. Gentry froze up. Judge Herndon awarded Brown
$24,000 in fees against Jesse and the tenants are paying their
rent to Brown. I spoke to Jesse about it.
"When you get into a fight you NEVer show weakness when
you're hit. You go on the attack!" I counseled him to go back
after Herndon. Name him. What I want him to do is to file a
racketeering complaint against Herndon, Brown and Markley and
go into the court with 100 people and do the same thing I've
done, just lay this whole thing out on a Summary Judgment
motion. That's the strategy he should follow. But they all
follow their own instincts and only ask me when they get upside
down some place. He should go after them right away because
they have no defense.
The next issue of the Oregon Observer went out to all the
judges with a picture of Judge Herndon on the front page. Brown
showed up at the mobile home park a few weeks later and was
selling Jesse's trailor, the one they remodeled, as abandoned
property. He has absolutely no legal right to do that. When I
saw Brown coming on the property I went down to him with a
group and publicly condemned him.
"This is Milton Brown, he's a shameless treacherous thief.
He murdered his partner, forged the documents, he's wiped out
every partner he's ever had." and he was just tweeking,
twitching back and forth while I said this about him. He had
his auctioneer with him.
"If you come down to number 8 Brown I'm going to arrest
you," I said.
I went down to number 8, went in and called the sheriff's
office and said I was going to perform a citizen's arrest. They
said to call 911 and then Sergeant Johnson from the Gladstone
police department showed up. Johnson is mid-forties, gray/blond
hair, 5-10 maybe 180 pounds, has kind of a drill sergeant
persona about him. He tries to project that hard edge military
type. When Johnson arrived with another police officer down
there at number 8 I told him that I was going to arrest Milton
Brown for murder and theft. He was writing this down.
"You're not going to arrest anyone or I'll arrest you," he
said.
"Listen Johnson, I'm a former prosecutor. I didn't ask you
for your advice. I just asked you to come down here and stand
by." So that kinda backed him off a little bit. I went over to
Brown and I grabbed him by the arm.
"I'm arresting you Milton Brown for the murder of Don
Kettleberg and the theft of that property," and his eyes-I've
known the guy for 30 years and I've never seen his eyes because
they're right down in the corner of his nose. When they're real
crooked like that they won't look at you. They always look
down. You cannot get eye contact with a thief because he cannot
look at you because he's lying. You have to be a very
accomplished attorney to lie with your eyes open. Of course, an
attorney is usually not lying, he's getting someone else to do
it. I was kind of fascinated to see what color his eyes
actually were. He's a Shylock. If you want to know about Milton
Brown read The Merchant of Venice and you've got a picture of
Milton Brown. These little beady eyes, he's had his nose
bobbed, he's had his ears laid back, he's had a hair transplant
to make himself look ordinary, but if you saw him in his
natural configuration he would be bald, big out ears, long
pointed nose- an absolute Shylock-and these Eurasian eyes,
slightly slanted back, a kind of unusual gray color, like a
wolf's eyes. So I arrested Milton Brown and then Brown ran
around and hid behind Sergeant Johnson.
"You stay away from me! You stay away from me!" he says
standing back behind Johnson, looking over his shoulder while
Johnson's talking to me. I wasn't intending on taking Brown
into custody.
"Did you get pictures of all this?" I asked one of my
supporters. Someone bought #8 and then they went to another
unit, number 2, to auction that off. I was pointing out
Brown.
"He's stealing this one too," and just making these
statements to intimidate him. I'm fascinated by Milton Brown
because of his genealogy and what he represents. Milton Brown
is the antithesis of everything that I believe in and the
epitome of a miser. Everything for him is money. Everything is
bought and paid for. He is totally devoid of any kind of moral
conscience at all. That fascinates me that he has been able to
corrupt to the extent that he has, to the extent that our
culture has become a money culture. He is the center. He has
the whole state, the whole court system, the state government
circling and protecting him. He is what the laws are written to
protect us against. It's completely upside-down. The thought
that that little viper could do that is just mind-boggling. I
had no idea when I became involved in this. I thought, naïvely,
that once I exposed some of this they would be forced to break
loose. Instead, there's been this coalescing around him by the
whole system.
We left out of the Tri-County Mobile Home Park and there
were 2 police cars parked about a block away with 4 officers in
each one. They were waiting as back-up in case something
happened. We went down to the Gladstone Police Department to
report to chief of police King because I'd told King previously
what was going on. King is about 5 foot 10, bald, cuts his hair
short, pug-nosed, looks like he had maybe been a boxer at one
time. He has that small face, fairly husky fella, maybe 180
lbs. When I'd spoken with him before he was a little bit
nervous talking to me, but not threatening at all in our
previous conversation. Now I was back to tell him that Johnson
threatened me with arrest. We walked in and asked for King. He
came around the outside and Johnson was with him. I started to
explain to him what I was doing, arresting, and that I was
threatened by Johnson.
"Well I've read all that stuff that you submitted and it's a
bunch of crap Weidner," he said.
"Well King, it is not a bunch of crap. I've testified to
this in court repeatedly and." Glaring, with Johnson standing
by his side, he interrupted me.
"You're full of shit Weidner." I couldn't believe it.
"Well, you're obviously very corrupt King and in the pocket
of Milton Brown," I said, "but you're not very smart King
because you're saying this in front of all these witnesses
here," and we left. I went over to the city council and said
that I wanted to speak at the next council meeting, which was
coming up on June 11th. Gladstone. I showed up out there on the
appointed day with 8 to 10 people. I'd asked King to show up
and he showed up. Retired Marion county sheriff Jack Utterback
and his wife Dixie showed up also. When they called my name I
got up in front of that council, said who I was, pointed to
King and said what I did out there.
"We will not tolerate this kind of corruption by our public
employees. A paid public employee is down here to protect
innocent people." and he was sitting there beet red while I was
doing this to him. And then when I got through Mother walked up
to him.
"You should be ashamed of yourself!" and that was that. He
didn't say a word.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
If you come to me from thousands of miles away and ask.
"Oh teacher, teach me about how you deal with this
corruption."
"All the books I've read and all I've studied." probably
Harl Haas said it best when I went to work as a prosecutor in
the DA's office back in 1973.
"When you get into something Roger, if you have 'em by the
you-know-what, their minds and their hearts will follow." First
you have to catch them doing something wrong. In this case, I
caught not just one, I caught the whole system doing something
wrong.
The problem has been to get enough public awareness to
overcome the control that is in place. People have been telling
me that it cannot be dislodged because it's so widespread. What
is needed is more numbers of people to apply more pressure and
generate more exposure. The hardest thing has been to get a
broad enough support base to go after the corruption in the
system. The frustration for me is that people think that they
can read a book, read what the law says, go to law school or
ask a friend. But they have to have the plan inside themselves.
They have to understand it within themselves before they can go
and do something. People are conditioned to go see the police,
make a report, talk to their attorneys and to act within the
system, expecting it to come to their relief, as it should.
But, because of the level of corruption it is incapable of
coming to the assistance of anyone who has been targeted by the
system to be taken down. If it's a state agency that is coming
after you, any of the state agencies, or this group of corrupt
attorneys of long standing, who have become a part of the
system, that whole system is wired. By definition, if you're
innocent, you're going to lose in a corrupt system. Making
people understand that the courts are not their friend is so
difficult. All that courtroom is, it's a place to make a
record. When you come in and ask that judge for something, or
start asking him his name to intimidate him, thinking that your
defense is going to rest on your ability to hook him on
something, you're going to be ripped to shreds. This is the
fatal flaw.
When you come into the courtroom you are the moving party.
You are the injured party and you're coming into that courtroom
simply to make a record, in the courtroom, of the injury that
you have sustained. To do that you file the complaint making
the charge. And then, tactically, ordinarily, if it's not a
fast money case, your lawyer is going to say he needs a 10
thousand dollar retainer because he's got to spend time taking
depositions, collecting evidence, discovery and all these
things that he has to do. That's what he tells you because he
wants the money! That's what he's really after, obviously. And
so, he takes these depositions. Supposedly, the reason he takes
the depositions is to catch someone lying so you can beat them
in court.
Well, what I know is that it makes no difference whether
they're lying because the court system is so wired against the
victim. In the Kettleberg case, and all these other cases,
we've proven it. There is no dispute at all! At all!! This
theft is flagrant, outright and obvious but the system is
protecting it. And I cannot get that reality into people's
heads. The system is not your friend, people! It is openly
protecting these murderers and thieves, giving them armed guard
protection in those courtrooms.
"Mr. Brown, you don't have to produce any documents..."
judges are saying and then are attacking the victims of his
thievery.
The governor, everyone, is subject to a judge's order. The
courtroom is the defining arena where your rights are either
respected or ignored. And that's what is so hard to get through
people's heads, the importance of that courtroom, so that the
system can operate as it was intended to operate. When former
Chief Justice Ed Peterson and the Attorney General and all the
rest of them are acting like this, the whole system has been
sucked in. The corrupt core in our society has been able to
completely subvert it so, instead of protecting innocence, it
protects guilt.
Most people think that a judge has inherent power to do
whatever he wants to do. During the litigation phase that judge
is simply a referee in a litigation process where you have
equal adversaries, equal before the law, dukeing it out and the
judge seeing that that goes on in an orderly fashion. And that
is what has been stripped out of the system. We now have this
heavy-handed judicial system allowing thieving attorneys and
bureaucrats to steal our property. State agencies are taking
our lands, our children and our personal property. The only
time that people react is when they personally have been hit.
Something's been taken. Then they come up like a wounded
bull.
"OHhh, they can't do this!" and they go talk to this
attorney or that and they always think if they're busy they're
accomplishing something. If the attorney has a big fancy office
they'll write that big fat check, a retainer, borrow money from
their family, everyone, and they want to think they will be
victorious. What I know is it's just like picadors in a
bullring. Those attorneys are sticking that pipe into them and
draining them of their vital energy. And they drag this thing
out, and you get weaker and weaker, and your neighbors and
family-everyone starts running away and then you are led into
that courtroom and the judge is like the matador. He thrusts
the sword right down between your shoulder blades and out you
go. All your money's gone. None of your friends are going to
want to have anything to do with you because they know it's
going to cost them something. They don't want to hear it. It's
going to disrupt their little lifestyle. That's what's going
on.
Our legal system is based on the English common law. All our
rules of evidence-what evidence is admissible, what evidence is
not-come basically from the English common law system. A court
is a place to make a public record. That's all that a court
is.
We have an adversary system-a plaintiff, a defendant, and a
neutral judge. Each side has an opportunity to come into the
courtroom, put on his case and call his witnesses, to prove
that the facts he is alleging give him the right to recover
according to some rule of law. Each side has a right to put on
its evidence, to cross-examine the other party's witnesses and
to discredit those witnesses so that their testimony should not
be believed.
In the English system there were the royal courts and there
was no such thing as a constitution. There was no such thing as
equal protection under the law and due process of law. The
system was based on whatever the king granted to his subjects.
Until the time of the Magna Carta in 1215, when King John was
stripped of his absolute power, the kings had absolute life and
death power over their subjects. The serfs had no rights at
all. Through the Magna Carta, the local nobility put
restrictions on King John.
In 1640 there was a movement by the international bankers to
depose Charles I of England, which they did. He was beheaded.
Oliver Cromwell came to power and that was the breaking of the
stranglehold that the nobility had on the country, shifting it
from the nobility-the landed aristocracy-to the bankers.
The bankers-then as now-controlled the money, thus they
controlled who was elected to Parliament. The English
Parliament became a bastion of people basically working for the
Bank of England. The Bank of England was given a charter in
1690 in exchange for a loan to the King William III. It became
totally above any laws passed by Parliament. By 1694 the Bank
of England was running England and also financing and running
the international bankers' empire around the world.
America was colonized. Colonies are trading posts created by
the bankers. The bankers acquire the people to go and colonize
different areas whether it's Australia, North America, South
America-wherever it is-it's creating their system in a new
environment. Holland colonized in America. New York was called
New Amsterdam. In about 1660 the British defeated Holland
taking over her colonies and becoming the premier maritime
power, vying with France. France and England had been at war
for a long time fighting over colonies. France controlled
Canada and the Mississippi Valley. St. Louis was named after
Louis the 12th. When the English took over from the Dutch and
started expanding those colonies the French used the Indians to
attack and massacre the settlers. George Washington was a
captain, a soldier for the British government in those wars.
That's when our court system, our rules of evidence came in,
with the British system. The king appointed royal courts.
When this country was first founded it contained rugged
individuals who looked out for themselves. The government, if
anything, did the military function, improved the roads and
those kinds of things. But you didn't have all these social
functions-medicare, social security, medicaid, childcare, aid
to education-all these things didn't exist so each person was
forced into self-reliance. As the east coast built up people
migrated across country but the migration was funded by the
bankers to exploit the land, the mines and the timber for their
own gain. They gave the people the opportunity to come out here
and, there again, you had this rugged individualism that we
admire so much.
For a long time the colonists were left to create their own
money, their own activity. All that money does is it creates a
medium of exchange to facilitate commerce. If it's issued by
the government no interest accrues. But the bankers reeled in
abject horror to the idea that that kind of system would be set
up. England and the Bank of England were taxing different
products and getting their income that way. This continued
until the 1770's and the French and Indian wars. The
colonists-like today-if the business people are making profit,
they don't want to disturb their lifestyle so they tolerate a
lot of abuse in order to maintain what they see as a
comfortable lifestyle. Concerning the Revolutionary War,
there's always rumbling for change, obviously, when you're a
colony. But, like today, things have to reach a certain level
before good people will stand up. I've found that people will
avoid conflict as long as they possibly can, as long as things
are bearable. When they become unbearable then they are forced
to act. The French and Indian wars put a drain on Parliament's
reserves so they started imposing excise taxes, stamp taxes to
pay for the wars that had been fought. The colonists had to
have stamps on any transaction, any product that was sold. It
provoked a rebellion in the colonies which became a full-scale
revolution.
There's a lot of debate concerning King George the III. He
was not a very bright man. The Parliament, like our congress
today, was very much controlled by the money powers. There were
some men like Edmund Burke and British Prime Minister William
Pitt, men of moderation and restraint. But those voices were
not being heard, as the voices of moderation and reason are
very seldom heard in our congress.
There was a group of men in this country who were very much
influenced by the French enlightenment, by Montesquieu,
Rousseau and Voltaire. These men were in their late 60's and
70's when Jefferson and Madison were young men. They talked
about the equality of man and that there is a social contract
between the people and the government. The concept was
formulated that in this country we would have one class of
citizens all equal before the law, and that the citizens are
the sovereign authority. That's the idea that was incorporated
into our Constitution, that in this country we were not going
to have royalty we were going to have but one class of
citizens. This was not the case in England or any of the other
countries. If you read the Declaration of Independence it's
like a preamble to the Constitution. It explains the purpose
for the Constitution and what was the prime concern of the
founding fathers leading up to the drafting, ratification and
enactment of our Constitution. Though England's absolute powers
had been modified by the influence of the international
bankers, there were still very definite and distinct classes of
people, as there were in this country. There were the wealthy
and the landed and there were the lay people who were the
workers and had virtually no rights. They were, by and large,
uneducated. When you talk about civil rights as a practical
matter, they had none. They had no access to the court because
they had no resources to get into court.
Because of the fear of the central governments, all the
states were separate sovereign entities. They put up tariff
gates at their borders and commerce could not move freely back
and forth because of all the impediments. Every state imposed a
duty for goods being moved in and it weakened them so much they
were vulnerable to foreign attack, being a brand new country.
So, it was recognized that there was a need for a central
government, but a limited central government, that was able to
do those things that the states could not do for themselves. It
would have the right to coin the money, build roads and
harbors, those things that had to be done to promote trade and
commerce.
After the Revolutionary War there was talk of creating
royalty in this country, of making George Washington George I
of all these separate trading colonies up and down the Atlantic
coast, but there was such a revulsion against central
governments. London was the central government of the world. It
controlled much of America, of India, later China and its arms
were reaching all around the world. The bankers were basically
using the royalty as a front. They would loan the money so the
royalty could live in their lavish lifestyle. Then they would
turn the tax farmers loose on the citizenry to collect these
exorbitant taxes, much like our IRS operates today. The same
people-the international bankers-then as today-are calling the
shots.
The Constitution was drafted almost 10 years after the
Revolutionary War, incorporating these new concepts-the
sovereignty of the citizens, equal protection under the law,
and due process. Due process of law is simply a fair hearing
with an impartial judge. If you do not have an impartial judge
you do not have due process of law. The fact that this was
drafted and put into a formal document did not change the
nature of our banking system. It did not change the instincts
of the people who were running the commercial world at that
time. It was looked upon by the world bankers as somewhat of an
impediment. Thomas Jefferson, having drafted the Declaration of
Independence, was a moving personal force in this idea of the
equality of the citizens. James Madison, James Monroe, John
Adams, John Quincy Adams, governor Clinton of New York-this
whole group of men was committed to this idea of a
constitutional democracy with a republican form of government.
So, they elected representatives to Congress based on
population. The Houses of Representatives in the respective
states selected the senators to represent their states, like
ambassadors. That was the original idea. US senators were not
elected by popular vote as they are today. So that was the
cradle in which our legal system was founded.
CHAPTER TWELVE
A courtroom is an arena. There are only 2 sides. There's the
victim side and that of the victimizer. What a court system is
intended to do is to protect innocence and to protect right and
to punish wrong so that if you are injured by someone,
negligently or intentionally, the system allows you to go into
a courtroom, to lay out those facts and be vindicated and
compensated for your injury. Now that's what keeps people
civil. A court is a place where sovereign citizens, parties
that are equal before the law, can come into that courtroom
with an impartial judge sitting there and sling as much mud
back and forth at each other as they possibly can to discredit
the other side and to enhance their position-that's the whole
purpose-and to do it in a sophisticated way enough that you do
not alienate a jury. The jury decides what the facts are in the
case, who is credible and who is not, and at the conclusion of
that trial the judge applies the law to the facts and you have
a decision. If you have been able to make a full record, if the
judge rules improperly on admitting evidence or excluding
evidence, or in applying the wrong rule of law, you have an
appellate court that determines whether or not one of the
party's constitutional rights were violated in the trial court.
That's all an appellate court does. It determines whether or
not a party's constitutional rights were observed in the trial
court. That is what you learn in law school. That is the basic
structure of our judicial system.
But what has happened, quietly, like thieves in the night,
they have come in like miners and sappers and they have
subverted that process to the benefit of a very few. They've
been able to put in enough corrupted, compromised public
officials in these critical positions-chief justice, governor,
legislators-to protect that corruption. The key to all this is
for the people to come into the courts in large numbers,
intimidating the judge, forcing him to allow a full record to
be made of what is, in fact, happening. But the system is so
controlled that you have to file a pleading. And if you file a
pleading that the judge does not want to hear, the other side
will file a motion to dismiss it and the judge will grant that
motion to dismiss. So you can never get the matter into the
courtroom.
A pleading is a case at issue. You file preliminary motions,
motion to strike, motions to make more definite and certain the
pleadings. These are things that are supposed to bring the case
to issue. But unless you know the rules you just walk into it
blind and you're on a shooting range. You're just out there
like a deer on the highway looking at them and they just rip
you to shreds. They will assert something that may not have any
basis but you don't know it.
"They failed to state facts sufficient to constitute a Cause
of Action here..." and they just mumble these words.
"I agree, and I'll sustain the objection." They just talk.
They make things up. Then they will write an opinion that
really has nothing to do with the facts, they just write it as
they see it.
"Do you run a corrupt court?" you ask the judge.
"Yes, I run a corrupt-" he's going to say. No! He'd never
say 'I run a corrupt courtroom.' 'Of course, I'm very
important! Well, I got the award of the week and I was judge of
the year.' and they always say this stuff.
"Anyone got $25,000?" Jesse's going around saying. He's
reacting to their criminal behavior as if it's valid. Pam sees
it but Jesse doesn't. Ed Snook sees it but a lot of people
don't. We are putting heat on the system by exposing these
crimes against the people. We're forcing them to strictly
comply with their oaths of office. That's all I've been
insisting upon. Strictly comply with your oath of office.
Conduct fair and impartial hearings so that the victim, the
injured party, has the right to come into that courtroom and
make a record of that injury. If the government is coming after
him for something, they have to show him a valid law, the
authority, and they have to show that the facts support the
action that the government is taking. This is an absolute MUST
in our system. This is the very cornerstone of a free society,
the constitutional limitation on government, the rule of
law.
We have a form of government with a check and balance
system, no single authority vested in a single individual
because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We have 3 separate, co-equal branches of government, each a
check and balance on the other. Because the Representatives are
closest to the people, elected by popular vote, only the House
of Representatives can introduce a revenue measure or raise
taxes. If they are excessive they will be driven out of office.
That's the whole idea, giving the public the control of the
pursestrings. We then have a bi-cameral legislature, the House
of Representatives and the Senate. That's one branch of
government.
The second branch of government is the Executive branch, the
President, who serves as the Commander-in-Chief of the military
and he is to carry out and enforce the laws that are enacted by
the Legislature. That's what he is. He is an executive officer.
The House and Senate are kinda like his board of directors.
They formulate a policy-now this is in the pristine world when
the Constitution was drafted 220 years ago-and he acts as an
executive officer carrying out the laws.
And the third branch, the Judicial, acts to determine
whether or not the laws passed by the House and Senate meet
constitutional muster, whether or not they in any way violate
the Constitution. That's all that our Supreme Court does,
oversee government to make sure it's operating within the
bounds of the Constitution. The House of Representatives funds
the executive branch, and it funds the Senate, so it has the
power of the pursestrings over the government.
The Executive can veto bills that the House and Senate pass.
The House and Senate can override those vetoes with a 2/3
majority, which makes it very difficult and then any
appointments to the Supreme Court are made by the President
with the advice and consent of the Senate. This is the check
and balance system that was set up. What our founding fathers
were terrified about was tyranny and abuse and the horrendous
impact that money has on running politics. They feared the
corrupting influence of money in our political structure
causing the elected officials, and soon all of government, to
be working simply as lackeys for the money powers. The money
powers are not interested in the general well-being of the
public. All they are concerned about is maximizing their
profits and maintaining absolute power and control. So, this
was the fear that our founding fathers had. They set up this
system of government, which guaranteed, in our Constitution,
the rights of the citizens to due process and equal
protection.
What I have come to realize-being in the system now for some
36 years-I had no idea that a system could become as corrupted
as it has become. And why you don't realize that going through
law school is because when you read decisions, every decision
you read is framed in the context of equal protection, the
balance of power and the observance of constitutional rights.
That's how the legal decisions are made. What I've come to
realize though is that the judges simply write what they want
to write! What has happened now with the corruption of our
process, and it has been corrupted to the core, is that if you
have had your children wrongfully taken by some state agency,
or if you've had your lands zoned out of use by the Land
Conservation and Development Commission, or if you've had your
inheritance or other property shamelessly stolen from you by
corrupt attorneys, you cannot get those facts, those underlying
facts-showing that criminal conduct by these agencies and these
individuals-before a jury as the law provides.
I hear people say all the time.
"Oh, they can't do that, they can't do that." Legally they
can't do it. The law says they can't do it. But they're doing
it, and that is what is so insidious about what is confronting
us. These judges do not hold up one hand saying this. You don't
see plastered on the courthouse doors the warning of how
corrupt the court systems are.
"We're corrupt! We're corrupt! Do not come any where near
this legal system or you're just going to get beaten up worse
than you have been already." You're encouraged.
"Oh, have you got a good attorney? Go get a good
attorney."
The only time an innocent person goes to court is when
something has been wrongfully taken from him. So, when
something is taken you ask your friends and family.
"My God! What do I do?" Well, everyone starts giving you
advice.
"Go hire this attorney. I know a good attorney."
Well, when you go get that so-called attorney and he's in
that silver palace of an office, it is all intended to deceive
you into believing that here is real competence. Here is the
highest form of legal, scholarly talent. This is the impression
that they try to create when you walk into these law offices.
And, of course, what an attorney is primarily concerned about
is the money! His concern is to get as much money doing as
little work as he can. That's the whole idea! He doesn't tell
you right off the bat.
"Listen, it's just too corrupt. I can't do anything for
you." He wouldn't make any money! He will show indignation and
share your anger.
"Oh, they can't get away with that," until you sign that fee
agreement. And once you do that, and you pay him a 10 or 15
thousand dollar retainer, he controls you because he has your
money. If you become dissatisfied with him you have to go to
another attorney and he wants 10 or 15 thousand dollars. So,
you get just drained white.
This is the dilemma that a person finds himself in and what
the attorney will do, he will put on an act He will talk tough
to get your money but that's the last time that you'll ever see
indignation or outrage. Soon he's putting you off, telling you
you have to do something, you have to do this or that, the
court set it over for this reason or that reason and then he
will get more and more testy with you, the client, the closer
you get to the courtdate. In some cases, when you walk into the
courtroom he will tell you.
"Now damnit, don't you say one word when we walk in there."
And if you do try to speak in these corrupt courts the judge
will tell you.
"You sit down and shut up! You let your attorney speak." So,
you sit there, literally gagged, while your attorney mumbles
some things that really are not the core problem that you're
facing. That's the dynamic that is set up in our court
system.
If you are in a law firm, and I've been there, your partners
beat on you all the time to bring in as much money as you can.
If you bring in a lot of money you have the best office in the
suite. If you don't you're relegated to the lowest position,
regardless of your talents. So this is the whole drive in the
legal profession. Money.
What the public does not realize about our system now is
that in many states, including Oregon, the courts have been
consolidated. It used to be that each county was a separate
entity within the state. The state was sovereign but it was
broken up into counties and each one of those counties was an
independent political subdivision of the state. About 15 years
ago they consolidated all those counties in Oregon. Before that
you paid your filing fee to Deschutes county, Clackamas county
or Multnomah county. Now you pay it to the state of Oregon. And
the judges, instead of getting their money from Multnomah
county, Clackamas county, where the county commissioners had
control over their salaries, now they're paid by the state of
Oregon. So you have them operating within the county but
totally immune from the political control of the local county
commissioners, who have to appeal to the voters.
In 1934, the Bar Association was created in Oregon. It came
from the Bar Association of England, the Inns of the Court in
London. Our American Bar Association is a member. The whole
purpose of this set-up is to insure protection for the money
powers of the world. When the Bar Association was first
established in Oregon it was touted as a way of keeping
unscrupulous attorneys from preying on unsuspecting people and
a vehicle for continuing legal education to keep the attorneys
abreast of the new changes in the law. Well, that may have been
its purpose 65 years ago when it was drafted but about 20 years
ago they required that all attorneys and judges be members of
the Bar. The Bar also became the insurance company for all
attorneys and judges. They are insured by the Professional
Liability Fund doing business as the Oregon State Bar.
They say down here in Multnomah County if you've got a case
worth more than 25 thousand dollars and you just get some
attorney-the big firms won't take it because there's not enough
money there-the little guy will take it who's just starting
out-they will slam dunk it on something to make it appear as if
it was the incompetence of your attorney. But, the reality is
the system is just that stacked. I'm told that the Oregon State
Bar has only a couple of million dollars in reserves. If that
was a clean court system and all this was going on and I was an
underwriter with the state insurance commissioner, they'd have
to post at least a half billion dollar bond to cover their
exposure for the injuries that they've caused. But when you
have a corrupt court system, and a corrupt Bar, they can steal
with impunity. They steal with the complicity of the judges
involved.
Harlow Lennon, a judge for whom I had great respect, said he
saw it coming in the system about 20 years ago. Arno Denecke,
another judge, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was
up to my place about 6 years ago. He said he was too old to get
involved. Other judges, Anthony "Tony" Casciatto and Charles "Chuck" Guinasso,
commented.
"Oh, you're gonna fight 'em, eh Roger? This oughta be
interesting."
So, they became aware, as everyone in the system is aware
now, that the judicial system has been totally, completely
corrupted to the core. Does that mean that every case you are
going to lose? For small fender bender kinds of cases or small
personal injury cases you may be able to get a fair trial. But
if the amount involved is over $50,000, with the corruption
that's in the system and the control that the insurance
companies have now, you will see that those cases, except in
rare instances when you have very large law firms that are able
to force a trial, the insurance companies are winning all the
time. The cases against them are dismissed on one pretense or
another but there are no large settlements being paid, in spite
of horrendous injury, particularly as it applies to injuries
caused by corrupt judges or attorneys. I'm not saying that all
judges are actively corrupt, but the core. Ed Peterson was
corrupt, Wallace Carson is corrupt, Herb Schwab was corrupt,
Donald Londer, Multnomah Presiding Court Judge was very corrupt
and James Ellis is very corrupt. So, when you have the
presiding judges in the different courts corrupt, what they
will do when they want a case to go a certain way, they will
assign it to one of the other corrupt judges in that court so
they know what the outcome is going to be. Multnomah County
Judge Londer would assign it to Lee Johnson-very corrupt, he
would assign it to Ellis-very corrupt, to Abraham-very corrupt,
Dorothy Baker-very corrupt, Stephen Herrell-very corrupt, Bill
Keyes-corrupt and Joseph Ciniceros-corrupt, so that the outcome
was a foregone conclusion.
People will say.
"Well, how can they do that Roger?" Well, they do it because
the public has allowed them to do it. Once again, we have
become Venice. We have become a money plutocracy.
Venice was a republic but it was a totally money-controlled
republic. There was no such thing as civil rights in Venice.
You were the creditor or you were the debtor. If you were the
debtor you had no rights at all. The creditor had slaves. They
could cut off their arms, legs, whatever they wanted, because
slaves were property, just like livestock. And that is what
people in our culture fundamentally do not understand. We're
headed back to this master/owner/property plutocracy and all of
us are property!
The government is basically a front for the money system.
They have placed us into this domestic animal category and they
are ready to put down any resistance emanating from these
domestic animals. You are free to work, buy and sell, produce
and consume, which they can tax, and as long as you don't
challenge that you're left alone. But the minute you question
or challenge their authority, down they come on you.
Government is forcibly changing our way of life, our
culture, so that people cannot pose a threat. They're dumbing
down the schoolchildren. They are targeting people in the
second or third grade, telling them what they are going to do,
giving them technical training but no political, no history,
none of the truth. They are not being taught true history. They
are being taught this manufactured history. They call people
like me revisionists because we are trying to teach the truth
rather than what has been taught. Schools are not teaching
about the past acts that have led to past events. They don't
want you to recognize the pattern of events.
People call this The Weidner Method now. Pam Gaston coined
that phrase. All I've been doing is going into those courts
with these large groups of people. The reason for the large
groups of people is to intimidate the guards. When I realized
what was happening, that the judges were blocking the litigant,
the party, the victim from coming into the court before a jury
and laying out the facts, and they were using the sheriff's
office, and the guards that are provided to the court by the
sheriff's office, to threaten and intimidate and arrest anyone
who challenged the authority of that judge, then I started
coming into the courts with these large groups of people and
putting the stories into the newspaper.
When I first started going into these courts and trying to
speak I was being arrested repeatedly for trying to speak in
the courtroom in a normal tone of voice. What they should have
done, if they took exception to what I was saying, they should
have sued me for defamation and put on the evidence that what
I'm saying is false, malicious, intentional lies. If they did
that I'd have to prove the truthfulness of it. Of course,
everything I'm saying is the truth and because it's the truth
it's an absolute defense to any libel suit here in the United
States. In England the truth was not a defense in many cases.
That's the influence of the bankers in England.
What they call The Weidner Method is simply filing a
complaint charging them and coming into the court with this
large group of people. Pam Gaston down in Mt. Angel, Oregon did
this in the Marion County Court. She charged the judges and the
state agents in the courtroom with criminal behavior in a
racketeering complaint and then moved for what is called a
Summary Judgment.
In a legal proceeding there is what is called a complaint. A
complaint is simply a statement of the ultimate facts-who the
parties are, what is the injury, where and when did it occur,
and what are your damages. They are general allegations. Then,
if the other side disputes the truthfulness of some or all of
those allegations, then there is a trial called to allow a jury
to decide who is telling the truth and who is not. If you file
a complaint and the other side doesn't respond, after 30 days
you can prepare an affadavit in which you state the
truthfulness, and give detailed explanations, of the facts that
you are setting forth. An affadavit is just a sworn statement.
It's like courtroom testimony. If the other side doesn't
respond, or if they do respond, you are allowed to go into a
courtroom and argue that you should be granted a Summary
Judgment. What I call The Weidner Method is filing the
complaint, waiting the 30 days, then filing a supporting
affidavit and a motion for Summary Judgment. You put the story
about the complaint that you filed-and particularly the
affadavit-into a newspaper. You take that newspaper and pass it
out to all the judges in the courthouse, the county
commissioners, the sheriff, as many of the law offices as you
can around the courthouse and as many concerned citizens as you
can find who will read it, so that you heighten the public
awareness of the corruption you are charging. When you go into
the courtroom to be heard on your motion for Summary Judgment
you bring this army of people which forces the judge, forces
him, to sit there and let you speak.
This is what Will Gaston did. He went into that courtroom
with 40 of us. This was his seventh or eighth appearance coming
in with this large crowd of people and he stood up and read an
indictment of the judge, about a 15-minute indictment of the
judicial system and that judge in particular, Judge Fred Avera.
(See www.avoiceforchildren.com Arresting a Judge, the script.)
He then arrested Judge Avera. He didn't take him into physical
custody but he performed a citizen's arrest on him in that
courtroom and walked out of the courtroom. If he'd tried that a
couple years sooner he'd have been instantly arrested, off to
jail and we'd never have seen hide nor hair of him again. But
as it was, he was able to speak in that courtroom, read the
indictment and when the guards came in I told the people to
stand up. We stand up in support.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Remember, all that a courtroom is, it's a place to make a
public record. When you come in and you're sworn in as a
witness, you take an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. If you lie that's perjury and
punishable by a prison sentence. It's a class C felony. What
I've come to find out is that in our system this is the time
spoken of in the Bible where right is wrong and wrong is right.
You come into the courtroom and you raise your hand and take an
oath to tell the truth. But if you actually try to tell the
truth you are arrested and jailed and ultimately thrown in the
insane asylum, as I was, subjected to incredible abuse, as I
was, to discredit you personally, but not to challenge you
legally, which is what they should do. Not a word I've said
over the last 12 years about this corruption has anyone
challenged. But the method that we've set up is to file a
complaint-that gives you standing-and come into the courtroom
with this large body of people. Once you file a complaint you
are a party. A party always has a right to speak. If you hire
an attorney the judge will say you can't speak, only your
attorney can speak. This is the reason we tell people not to
hire attorneys. You cannot do that if you want to prevail. The
attorney is a part of the system and he will gag you so that
the full story does not come out. And if the full story does
not come out you don't have a complete case made in that
courtroom. You come into that courtroom, having filed your
complaint pro se, you make your record of all these criminal
charges then put that story in the paper and spread it as
widely as you can to expose them. We've been doing this over
and over again for the last 10 years.
When you file that complaint in an adversary system, you are
making a charge against someone. You ran into me. You injured
me. You said something that was false about me. You libeled me.
You engaged in unfair competition in which the statute says you
cannot engage. You came up and you punched me in the nose. The
common law includes what they call a Cause of Action. You have
a right to be compensated by someone who injures you. If they
do it negligently you're entitled to compensation. If they do
it intentionally you're entitled to punitive damages. The Cause
of Action gives a person the right to sue, to seek recovery for
the injury he's suffered. The injury gives rise to the Cause of
Action.
Now, if you have a Cause of Action against someone, there
are certain facts that you have to prove supporting that Cause
of Action. You say one set of facts are so and the other side
says a separate set. What's happened in our system is they've
put in all these rules, the Uniform Trial Court Rules, and all
these different restrictions and statutes of limitation that
cut off and limit your rights. If you don't bring that action
within 2 years you can't bring it because of the Statute of
Limitations. When the injury is inflicted you have then this
Cause of Action and you say one set of facts are so and the
other side disputes it. We have an adversary system. You call
your witnesses to put on your case and the other side has the
right to cross-examine your witnesses to show that what they're
saying is false. And the judge's function is simply that of a
referee. If I'm the witness I'm speaking.
"...and Harry told me that John was a jerk and he did all
this before."
"Objection!" says the other side.
"What's the basis of the objection?" says the judge.
"Hearsay."
"Sustained." Then the witness says this.
"...and I was someplace and the woman said that they saw him
molesting a little girl..." but the case is whether or not he
ran into you.
"Objection!" the other side says.
"Basis?"
"Hearsay." Well it's not hearsay because it's not offered to
prove the truthfulness of something. It's just offered to prove
that some event occurred. So there are all these rules of
evidence and the judge is there to see that these rules of
evidence are applied and that each side gets a fair
hearing.
All cases have some publication that publishes them. There
is the Federal Reporter now, and in Oregon we have the Oregon
Reporter and the Court of Appeals Reporter. You can get what
they call horn books on evidence. I've got an evidence textbook
that talks about hearsay and exceptions to the hearsay rule and
these different factors. But that, to me, is something that is
beneficial if you know it. But you only have a limited amount
of energy and you have to maximize the return on the investment
of that energy. What I have found is the most efficient and the
most efficacious is the presence in the courtroom of large
groups of people and the talking in the courtroom, and in the
lobby, about the corruption in the system. My suggestion to
people, who want to do something is to work together, to tie
together these different groups.
You may read some law book with information pertaining to
your case but you don't understand fully all the intricacies of
the law, the ins and outs and how treacherous people can be,
because you don't know the rules. In the pit of your stomach
you know that you don't know it that well. And that is
something that you cannot acquire, you can't read it in a book.
Any proposition that you put forward in a courtroom the other
side will have a contrary proposition. It's not an exact
science. There are so many variables in the equation that talk
about the legislative intent, what they meant and what rules
apply, what rules of evidence. It's like walking on all of
these spinning wheels as you're trying to go through the
process. If you keep your head down and are trying to read a
book while you are doing it you're going to get slammed. Step
back and say to yourself.
"This process is corrupted. The laws are there for the
protection of the people but the individuals that are in those
positions of authority are corrupted." Instead of affording the
citizens the protection that the Constitution guarantees to
them, they are ignoring it, and they are giving their own
interpretation to these statutes which, in most cases, are
unconstitutional statutes. They are ignoring the
unconstitutionality of them because the judge is ignoring the
unconstitutionality of them. Federal judges are put in there as
a political appointees by the president. They are appointed for
life. You can't run against a federal judge. If you run against
a state judge, appointed by the governor, then the system turns
against you. It's a closed shop. That's one of the reasons we
were pushing so hard to create this Oregon Judicial Council,
which would be a group of 10 elected lay people, 2 from each
congressional district, to oversee the disciplining of
attorneys and judges. It would be an independent agency so that
when people are being put upon in these court systems, in these
corrupt courts, they can go in and talk about the
corruption-not the merits of their own particular case, but the
process-to a body that has control over these judges and
attorneys. The process of enforcing the law has been corrupted.
It's been turned upside down, on its head. That's the reality
of what's going on now.
Once you learn the basic concept about equal protection, due
process of law, you read the Constitution and some of those
early cases-Marbury vs. Madison-(you can go to the law library,
look that case up and it will give a site where that case was
reported) and if you read the patriot literature, there is
enough existing information out there now to give you a basic
understanding of what your rights are. Speech, arms,
unreasonable search and seizure, all these rights are
limitations on government, the Constitution being a limitation
on government action. People say the following.
"Oh, well the Constitution doesn't matter any more." When
people say that it incenses me. When you have that attitude you
are saying your rights don't matter any more! You cease to be a
sovereign citizen and once again become a subject. But you
become a subject of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). And
you become very exploitable and expendable, at their
discretion, not yours. Our whole system is based on this
concept of the dignity of the citizen, that the government is
there to serve the people and to protect the general public. If
a guy is a rapist, a murderer, an arsonist, if he's out there
causing great injury to people, he's got to be put away.
But what they are doing, they're creating victimless crimes
and they're saying to the police, '...oh, you don't have to use
due process any more...oh, you don't have to have probable
cause. You can go and stop anyone any time you want to...' and
when you have that set-up, and you have a corrupt court system
that supports the police no matter what they do, the court
ceases to be the arbiter where a person can come in and
question the police officer.
All a police officer has the authority to do is to cite you
for something that you have violated, investigate it and
testify in court about what his investigation shows. If a
police officer stops you, if you've committed a traffic crime,
or a traffic offense, he can stop you and determine who you are
but I tell people, 'You question him first.'
"Do you suspect that I've done something wrong? Why did you
stop me?" when he walks up. You ask the questions and he has to
answer you. Usually they will tell you that you did this or
that. Then they will ask you for your driver's license, your
proof of insurance, this kind of thing. There are questions
about whether or not they have the right to do that, but they
do it. A lot of these patriots and common law enthusiasts give
advice. 'Oh, don't do this if the officer does that.' and
maybe, technically, they are right. But he will arrest you and
take you to jail.
Police officers are peace officers. They have a duty to
maintain order. If they see a crime in progress they have a
duty to stop it, make a report and appear in court to testify
if called upon. To maintain the peace is their primary
responsibility. But they have shifted out of that and are being
conditioned and trained to intimidate the public. They have
become law enforcement paramilitary types where they're coming
and kicking in doors for no reason at all. The whole system is
breaking down.
Even though I used to be a prosecutor and worked in traffic
citations, I didn't realize how fragile the basis is upon which
the police are exercising their authority. The laws that speak
about licenses being required-only if you are engaged in
commerce, if you're a commercial hauler, do you have to have a
license. This is what the statutes actually say. I didn't
realize that. People have the right to travel freely on the
highways. There has been a big commotion and a lot of activity
over those issues but to me they are collateral issues and
divert the attention away from the real core problem with which
we are all plagued now and that is the total corruption of the
judicial process.
I went to my 45-year class reunion. Virtually 95% of those
classmates just want to sit around and talk about their golf
game or something like that. It is this mindlessness. People
have lost their ability to sense danger, just like a cocker
spaniel dog in a house. You take that cocker spaniel dog and
throw it out in the wild and it will be devoured. People have
been so busy out playing, having a good time, acquiring their
fortunes-you're acquiring them in a chicken coop people! You're
all in a chicken coop! Some of you have more meat and feathers
and fluff than others do, but you're in a chicken coop. If they
want it, they grab you, jerk you into that system, FWUMPH!! You
just implode. And to get that through people's heads-it's just
mind-boggling to me that it's taken this long.
People have become so domesticated. A jack rabbit or a deer
runs out of danger, as does any kind of wild animal. You
domesticate it and it loses it's sense of danger. Someone is
feeding it and caring for it. When you domesticate a human he
becomes dependent upon being fed and cared for. He loses his
sense of danger.
I saw that contrast between my father here in Portland and
my grandfather and uncles up in Montana. They're always alert
to their spread. If any activity is threatening their property
they're like a bunch of prairie dogs. Heads up, and they're
looking at it. If there is a danger they come together and they
take down the common danger. What's happened in our system is
that the common danger is the government.
The government is simply bankrupt front organizations for
the world bankers. We have been in bankruptcy since 1932, this
country and every organization in it. All these government
employees are just employees of the judgment debtor of the
United States. We are assets. We are considered property. All
of our lands have been pledged as collateral and we've already
lost all that because we couldn't pay the debt. We couldn't pay
the debt because of the interest on it. The bankers own that
collateral now so they can do anything they want to with that
land. But they don't come out and say that.
"We'll run this thru congress," they say, and our parks are
turned into biospheres, off limits to the public.
The whole activity of the debtor is simply to pay the
interest that is owed to the creditor. When someone goes into
bankruptcy, a chapter 7, he goes into a reorganization. A
creditors' committee is set up. The creditors' committee allows
him to continue but it dictates the policy. Every member of the
United Nations is a judgment debtor in bankruptcy or
reorganization. The countries of the world are all in
bankruptcy or in a reorganization of their debt. Everything in
our country has been borrowed against by our government and is
owed to the world bankers now. They own us. This is as criminal
as criminal can be but it's what is in place.
As a historian I tell people the history of civilization is
not the history of equality and sovereign citizens. It's the
history of master and slave.
Thousands of years ago there was a drastic change in the
climate. Before that people lived nomadically like native
American tribes lived here, nomadic people that followed the
livestock. Tribal instincts and tribal cultures have existed
for thousands of years. That has been the predominant way of
life. It still exists today in places like Afghanistan. That is
a tribal culture. Just as lion herds follow the livestock the
human tribes did also and they had to stay tribally together in
order to survive. Since the time of the ancient pharoahs, since
the time of Sumer, people stopped being nomadic and roaming.
They settled and planted. When that climatic change occurred
people started growing crops at the base of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers-what is now Kuwait-and in Egypt. The
separation of classes of people developed and the division of
labor. That is where civilization began about 5000 years
ago.
Early on in Sumer and Ur, Babylon, which was near where
Baghdad is today, was an outpost, a trading center much like
Fort Collins was a trading center for New York. There was the
fort in Detroit. Then one out in Kansas. The forts were there
to protect the commercial activity from the hostile tribes
around it.
The ancient cities had some place where they mined, gold
usually, and they had commercial activity. So they set up a
town, an outpost. Babylon became the first sophisticated
commercial center. It drew people into it to perform the
different functions that need to be performed and in turn
became powerful in its own right, a child of the parent.
That child will turn and devour its parent. It will go back
as a military power because it forgets where it came from. It
has no memory. It will go back and conquer because that is the
instinct of men who are power-driven to conquer, to control.
You see this from the time of Sumer to Ur to Babylon.
There was a bartering system that went on as a medium of
exchange. At the time of Babylon people began taking their gold
and precious metals, depositing them, getting receipts and then
trading with those receipts. That's when commercial paper money
came into existence. There was a priesthood-money priests-who
manipulated that money. Trade would come up through the fertile
crescent, the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Euphrates River, then down through Jerusalem to Egypt. When
Abraham left Ur 4000 years ago commercial civilization was
already in existence.
A commercial civilization soon structures a system of a very
few at the top controlling everyone. That rich money class
becomes very indulged, very decadent, very depraved ultimately
and the structure of the society breaks down so there is no
cohesion, no family sense, no protecting of the children and
the elderly, just a general exploitation of everyone. Abraham
left to go back into the wilderness and restore that
human-caring kind of profile. He had to go back into nature to
do it because the characteristic of commerce has always been
ruthlessness. It's always driven by profit. Because it produces
wealth it needs protection from the nomadic tribes on the
outskirts always looking in to raid and carry off those riches.
They are drawn to the easy lifestyle and the luxury.
Nineveh was the capital of Syria. It became the predominant
power. The wall around Nineveh, about 16 miles long, was so
wide 2 teams of horses could run abreast around the top of it.
That wall was high also because, just as a farmer puts wire
around his chicken coop, if something is created that's
attractive the wolves are going to come down and snatch it.
That is the history of civilization. People had to build walls
of protection because inevitably they were going to be
attacked. Jerusalem was a walled city. Virtually every city
was. And even when you talk about Wall Street, that was where
they built the wall to protect themselves from the Indians
right down there on the end of Manhattan island. They had this
little enclave there, Peter Stuyvesant, New Amsterdam, and the
wall went across the tip of Manhattan island to protect them,
so they called it Wall Street.
Egypt colonized Athens. The Egyptians were a sophisticated
culture and they soon drove the native tribes out of the area
which became Athens. Then those tribal people were brought back
in as soldiers. They became indigenous and involved in the
culture themselves and soon they too became corrupt and
decadent. So, it's an ever continuing cycle.
The early trade routes went from Sumer to Egypt through
Jerusalem. In that society there were those who worked with
their hands producing something tangible and those who were
working for the money manipulators performing some
administrative, regulating function. That was the dynamic that
has always been. The military protected that economic entity.
But it was always controlled by the people that had the money.
The serfs were simply there to serve the needs of the money
people. That's what went on in the far east and that's why
Abraham left Ur. It became decadent.
On the eastern Mediterannean were Tyre and Biblos, which is
Beirut. These were commercial centers, very sophisticated
commercial entities. The epics of Homer were about this
upheaval that occurred about 1000, 1200 BC. Cyrus overran and
basically created the Persian Empire. For 200 years his
progeny, and the progeny of those he conquered, gradually
degenerated. Decadence set in. They were very effeminate men
going around with earrings, looking like they do in downtown
Portland today. These warring bands were drawn to that
commercial enterprise and they overran it because it was
decaying. Of course, after they overran it they didn't go back
home to their rustic lifestyles. They stayed and became a part
of that culture themselves and they in turn, and their children
and grandchildren, become as decadent as those they overran.
So, that's the cycle that goes on and you see that about every
200 years.
The people of Greece, this rustic people, overran Beirut
and, at that time, Cyprus was a commercial center. The people
of Greece were a very robust warlike people, much like the
Norseman who, 1500 years later, overran all of Europe. After
the Greeks fought the Persians they got in the Peloponnesian
Wars, fighting each other. So, Phillip from Macedonia came down
and conquered all the Greeks. He was assassinated when he was
about 58-years-old, leaving a son, Alexander, who was 20 and
had this enormous 50,000 man army that was trained to the
teeth. He had tremendous generals. Alexander the Great went
back and conquered all that Cyrus had founded. He went way over
into India, conquered all the Mediterannean and was the first
person to conquer the known world.
In the days of Alexander the Great the known world was the
Mediterannean basin. It was all fused around there from Athens
to Constantinople to Tyre, to Carthage. That's where all
commercial enterprise of the world developed. The reason it did
is because they could ship by large commercial vessels, much
more convenient than horse or camel caravans. But they were
restricted without compasses. They had to go along the
coastlines to wherever they went. For 2500 years, from the time
of Homer up until the time of Christopher Columbus, trade was
restricted to coastal trade routes.
In modern Rome or Tyre, a person that was born then could be
brought to the year 1800 and he could get by. There was that
level of sophistication. They had chemistry, they had medical
doctors, they had diagnosis, they had all of these. They were
very knowledgeable in a lot of the medical sciences, mining,
and engineering. Tremendous feats of engineering were performed
long before hydraulics came to be.
The Romans had large grain ships and would go down into
Egypt, their bread basket. Caesar had world rule and all this
pageantry and power until the Roman empire fell. Rome was
overrun and the Roman culture shifted to what was then
Byzantium. The last emperor died in the Byzantine empire.
Byzantium, the Istanbul of today, became Constantinople, named
for king Constantine about 350 AD. That's when Christianity
became a state religion but it incorporated much of the pagan
ritual. What they call the Greek Orthodox church today comes
out of that pagan ritual. The Byzantine Empire started falling
apart when Mohammed came along in about 600 AD. He cut huge
swaths into that. Then warlike tribes came out of central and
eastern Europe, the Gauls, Visigoths, and Ostrogoths, and
overran these commercial centers. They say there were tens of
thousands of miles of roads, high grade highways, built by
Romans up until 300, 400 AD and then for the next 1000 years
there wasn't a single mile of road built. It reverted back to a
more primitive culture, the onset of the Middle Ages.
The Ashkenazis, of which Milton Brown is a senior, were
Khazar tribal people like Attila the Hun. They looted India,
they looted China, that was where their great wealth came from
and it became the basis of their banking system. They
interacted with each other and they had a system almost like a
guild. They spread out and monopolized, ultimately, every
market that they entered. They drove out other banks that tried
to compete with them, by cutting profits.
The cities were always commercial oligarchies, like Venice.
They had the doge, who was the chief magistrate in the old
republics of Venice and Genoa. The political structure was much
like it is today in New York or London.
If you say to me, 'Tell me 8 or 10 people that run this
city,' well, I can go to Rockefeller Center and probably point
out 3 or 4 of them. 'That one does,' I can say as I walk by
their doors. I can go over to London, I can walk by N.M.
Rothschild's and point to that door. 'Well, what interest are
they promoting? Are they there promoting the general well-being
of the people?' No, they are not. They are promoting the
well-being of themselves and their financial institutions.
The commercial cities such as Amsterdam had a group of
burghers who ran them. They were self-sufficient economic
entities. Their legal system must have been some variant of
what we have today; a sitting judge, solicitors, who do the
legal work and barristers, who specialize in going before the
Bar. It was a Maritime situation, commercial law. Always the
economics dictate the kind of government you produce.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It is the money power that is at the very core of the
British Empire. It has been expanded and totally controlled by
the banking interest, which was excluded out of England around
1250. They were back in England by 1650 and by 1690 they'd
become powerful enough to be granted a charter by William of
Orange for 1 ½ million dollars. The Bank of England was
established. In the beginning it was not controlled by the
Rothschilds, it was controlled by other bankers, but the
Rothschilds were a power to reckon with. In France the bankers
fomented the French Revolution and wiped out all of the
aristocracy through all these little Jacobin cells, primarily
funded by the bankers. The Rothschilds didn't actually take
over the Bank of England until about 1815 after the Battle of
Waterloo. Nathan Rothschild was the House of Rothschild in
England. There was a House of Rothschild in Paris, a House of
Rothschild in London, a House of Rothschild in Vienna, a House
of Rothschild in Frankfort, and a House of Rothschild in Milan.
Herschel Bauer, the original Rothschild had 5 sons and set each
of those sons up. Nathan was in England and was probably the
sharpest one of the group. After the battle of Waterloo Nathan
came into the London stock exchange and started selling all of
his interests. People were watching him because they knew he
had good intelligence. That was an indication that Wellington
had lost and Napoleon had won. If that had happened there would
have been many businesses wiped out in England. When they saw
Nathan start to sell everyone else started selling too and it
drove the prices down to virtually nothing. Then Nathan had his
agents go in and buy it all up. By doing that Rothschild was
able to gain control of the English banking system.
When the bankers overthrew England in 1650 the control
shifted to Parliament and the bankers. Since 1650, what has
transpired is the gradual and ultimate elimination of the last
vestiges of feudal society. In its place has risen a commercial
culture controlled by the world bankers with the whole world in
a bankrupt status. We no longer have a feudal system. A feudal
system is totally independent of the banking system. It's a
military type of structure, which we have to have in order for
people to survive. We have to have soldiers and workers. A
feudal system is based on the cultivation of land and the
protection of that cultivation.
France and England had historically been enemies. France was
an agrarian land power and England was a maritime power.
England had become a naval power pirating the Spanish galleons
that were bringing the gold, looted from South America, back to
Spain. France was a power when England was just a little
backwater country. When England became a maritime power it
challenged France for supremacy. This conflict went on all the
way through the 18th century. Spain, as it became more
sophisticated, became ashamed of its slave trade, picking up
all these slaves in Africa and taking them to Central America
and the south and then picking up cotton and tobacco. Slaves
and tobacco were its big money cargoes. Drugs too. The China
clipper ships were said to be carrying all this English tea.
That was not tea, it was drugs. The opium wars in China
occurred when the British went in there and addicted the
Chinese with the opium imported from India. It wasn't the
citizens walking down the street in England that were doing
that, it was those that controlled the commercial enterprise
then, as they do now.
All our armies do, the armies of England, France, the US,
Germany, they simply are guards for the world bankers'
operations. That's what they do. And if the world bankers are
threatened any place, any place-look what happened in
Kuwait-WHAM! Instantly you have an army there at a moment's
notice.
About our patriot movement, it's so hard to get any movement
at all because there is no money involved but if, all of a
sudden, I have unlimited money to go out and foment, put out
publications, attack people viciously and libel them horribly,
with impunity, or if I get people inflamed enough-this is what
the bankers funded. Always it's the idea of supplanting the
feudal system, which was the landed aristocracy. It existed
worldwide. Up until the Russian revolution Russia had been a
feudal society, France had been a feudal society, Japan was a
feudal society, China was a feudal society. The bankers
replaced the feudal society with a commercial money-driven,
borrower-lender type of a culture. That's what the bankers do.
They loan the money to a country, they indebt it and they
extend it credit. When they extend the credit, the country
receiving the money has to pledge all its assets as collateral.
The extension of credit forces that country into taking all of
its profit and all of its gain and paying it to the bankers.
It's just for the extension of credit. That's the dynamic and
when you start messing with that-that's one of the reasons
Lincoln was assassinated.
Lincoln was in a southern city-Washington is a southern
city-right after the war. All this seditious element was still
there and he was in a theatre, a public place, totally
unguarded and his door to the box was left open so that a man
could walk up behind him and shoot him in the back of the head.
Lincoln wanted to circulate greenbacks, which were treasury
bills and not borrowed money. The intent of the greenbacks
Lincoln issued was to fund the war. The bankers wanted 16%
interest. It's just like the Kennedy assassination. Kennedy
issued debt free money just days before he was shot.
In the early part of the 19th century President Andy Jackson
said he was going to root out those vipers, and it was the bank
that he was after. Totally different types of personalities.
Lincoln had such personal strength and humility. Jackson had
strength, not humility. The bankers were against the idea of
bringing Jackson into Washington DC. He was lampooned and
characterized as this wild west wild man and the only reason he
was ever elected was because he had distinguished himself in
the battle of New Orleans and had this hatred for the British,
which was still lingering among the populace. That is what
catapulted him into the White House.
Lincoln had only served in one elective office. He was a
congressman for 1 term during the Polk administration, the only
popular war we ever had, when we stole all that land from
Mexico. He was indignant about it. He became known as 'show me
the spot' Lincoln.
"...well, they invaded at San Jacinto or somewhere..."
they'd say.
"Show me the spot! Show me the spot!" he retorted, because
they were just fabricating this, giving it as an excuse to go
to war to steal the land. So he was dumped, went back to
Springfield, Missouri and became an attorney for the
railroad.
The battle to abolish slavery was going on in the North.
There was a moral repugnance in the North though the South was
saying God ordained slavery. As new states came into the Union
the question was whether or not they were going to be free
states or slave states. The idea was to bring in one in the
North that would be free and one in the South allowing slavery.
And then it was, 'well, what are we going to do with Missouri?'
It was decided that the 49th parallel would be the dividing
line in Missouri and this was called the Missouri Compromise.
The Abraham Lincoln and Steven Douglas debates occurred. That
galvanized and brought great attention to the issue because
they were 2 very knowledgeable orators.
Prior to the Revolutionary War the citizens had tried to
stop the slave ships from coming in but they could not get it
stopped. Absolutely you cannot stop them because all that
colonies are, all that governments are, is front organizations
for the bankers. The bankers are the ones that drive
everything. The world bankers foment all the wars. They have
their men in place. They fomented our Civil War. They had
agents provocateur there. They were financing the South in
their campaign and using the newpapers to castigate Lincoln.
They said horribly libelous and outrageous things about him,
portraying him as a baboon and a monster, fomenting this split
so as to impose martial law. That's what the Civil War was
really all about. It was to create martial law within the
united States. Once you create martial law you create absolute
control. Martial law was declared during the Civil War. After
the war Lincoln was talking about bringing these states back in
as full partners right away. I think that's why he was
assassinated. The South was a very strong feudal type of a
culture. The bankers had to break the back of that and
Reconstruction is what broke the back. They appropriated all
those farms, all those lands and straddled them with debt. Then
they put Grant in there, who was a tremendous general but he
was a guy like my father. He wasn't a politician adept at
dealing with all the intricacies of governing. He was just a
straight arrow guy.
Before 1871 the federal government was a very small entity.
It did not have any of the reach it has now. It wasn't all
these agencies. The united States, restricted to it's
Cnstitutional form, was quite limited. It was primarily
concerned with duties, national defense, roads, canals and that
sort of thing. The founding fathers wanted to limit it's
authority, it's power, because they were concerned about
central governments and standing armies. The United States,
Incorporated, came into existence right after the Civil War
through the Reconstruction Act, which Congress passed in 1871.
When it became a corporation that allowed the bankers to assert
their control over it. It wasn't bankrupt then but this heavy
control of everyone in the country, what they called states'
rights, was supposed to be the function of the states.
In 1871 our government ceased to be a constitutional
republic and became a corporation. Originally Washington, DC
was laid out as a separate unit and the federal government only
controlled that district, the territories and possessions such
as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, etc. and the military bases
worldwide. Those are the only areas where they have plenary
powers. The federal government every where else is secondary.
We have sovereign states. The founding fathers were against
central governments because central governments are the
governments of the bankers. That was so 220 years ago, as it is
today. The reach of the federal government into all of our
lives is a usurpation of powers that were not given to the
federal government by the Constitution.
The Constitution says that all authority not specifically
granted to the states or denied to the federal government is
reserved to the states and to the people. In 1871 they actually
changed the wording of the Constitution to create this
corporate entity. They changed it's constitutional structure
without revealing it. In 1871 they created this United States,
Inc. which created corporate America and from that time on all
of our rights have been eroded. It is corporate America that is
indebted. We and everything we produce, as property of the
debtor, have been pledged as collateral for this open line of
credit we have with the international banking system through
our Federal Reserve. The Bank of England is the central bank
for all the world central banks and the corporate state of
Oregon, through the Federal Reserve, is a debtor to that bank.
All the states are corporations now. This is the control
mechanism that is in place. They control us by having us in
this position. Whatever they want to do, whatever program they
want to implement, land use, whatever it is, the federal
government just funds money into that program. That creates the
whole body of people who go about doing all this social
engineering.
What has happened though is we've gone through the
industrial revolution and that industrial revolution created a
whole new class of workers and a whole new social structure.
All of these wars, Communism, Socialism, Fascism and all these
isms, are manufactured and hatched by the bankers to change
with the sophistication of our culture.
The world bankers created the financial panic of 1897. The
House of Rothschild backed the Czar in the Russian/Japanese war
of 1905. Kuhn and Loeb, their American agent, was backing
Japan. Then the House of Rothschild withdrew its support. So,
the Japanese came in and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of
Russia's young men, weakening them and setting them up for the
Russian Revolution.
The bankers created another financial panic in 1907 starting
a rumbling to create the Federal Reserve system. Originally
banks had been chartered by the states. When they started
manipulating the markets, which they can do, that prompted the
creation of the Federal Reserve. That was supposed to smooth
out these fluctuations. Our Federal Reserve system is a
privately owned banking cartel. It has an all-encompassing
impact on the United States because it controls the economic
activity. Extending the credit then pulling it out, they
manipulated the markets and bankrupted this country, causing
the depression. That's the power, the dynamic that was going
on.
The history of the Balkans is a good example. When the
Ottoman Empire expanded it expanded into the Balkans. There is
a strong Muslim contingency there. There's also a strong
Russian Orthodox religious group there. In Germany there was a
military caste system in place. The Prussians were a military
caste and so did Japan have a military caste. In Russia they
had a military caste before World War I. Germany united under
Bismarck. All these different states united and they were
challenging the economic supremacy of France and England. They
had not historically been a colonial power. They had been
divided. Germany was an easy mark for Napoleon when he invaded
there 70, 80 years before. But under Bismarck it united and
became a colonial power and it was challenging France and
England, which were strictly controlled by the Rothschild
interests. After the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 Wilhelm became
the emperor. Then his son Wilhelm II. The military caste in
Germany was a power to reckon with. The bankers were busy in
Germany but they didn't have the absolute control that they had
in France and England. So, it was necessary to wipe out that
caste and that's what they did. They provoked World War I and
slaughtered off many of Germany's young men.
World War I was fought when the Archduke of Austria-of
course, he was a Rothschild puppet too-was assassinated in
Sarajevo. When that happened the Austrians invaded Serbia. The
Russians then came in to protect that contingent. This is what
the world bankers do to create the incident. Germany then came
into the war too and that's how they ignited World War I. The
idea that the assassination of a single man could bring on this
holocaust is absurd. Wars are always fought to create a
condition
When the bankers founded the Federal Reserve in 1917 they
funded the war. At the end of World War I, Germany was talked
into an armistice with the promise of peaceful terms. The
Versailles Treaty was negotiated by world leaders controlled by
Rothschild agents. President Wilson was controlled by Mandel
House, serving almost the same function that Kissinger did with
Nixon. Clemenceau of France and Lloyd George of Great Britain
were both Rothschild agents. Germany had been promised peaceful
terms but the House of Rothschild, at the congress of
Versailles, reneged on everything and imposed conditions on
Germany which were onerous and burdensome. That gave rise to
the roaring '20's when credit was much like it is now where
they are trying to get everyone to borrow money. People are
buying stocks on margin, putting 10% down. If you buy $100
stock for 10% down you pay $10. If it goes up 10% in value in a
couple days you've made 100% return on your money in a day. So,
you have this kind of mentality.
In 1929, 1930, they pulled the plug, just like they had done
10 years earlier in Germany, making Germany destitute. All of a
sudden the Germans had to have a wheelbarrow full of money to
buy a loaf of bread. Creating this kind of chaos was what gave
rise to Hitler. When they pulled all the pins out, stopped the
credit, collapsed businesses and threw people out of work, then
they needed a new kind of a demagogue. That's the role that
Franklin Roosevelt played but he was a demagogue with a smile.
He was implementing all of the New World Order programs. During
the depression all these bureaucratic alphabet agencies began
coming into existence under Roosevelt. All of these
right-to-work laws, previous to 1932, had been struck down by
the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. Roosevelt packed the
Supreme Court in order to expand federal power because
Roosevelt was a lapdog for the NWO. Meanwhile, the harsh terms
of the Versailles Treaty provided fuel for Hitler's rhetoric.
He got people all worked up talking about it.
As a result of the beheading of King Charles and Cromwell in
England around 1650, and the French Revolution in the late
1700's, royalty was overthrown and parliaments came into being.
A parliament, of course, consists of bought and paid for
attorneys, like we have today. They're all on the payroll,
always more than one payroll. These bankers caused the people
grief wherever they went because they did the same thing that
they've done in this country. They started taking over,
compromising everything. They compromised all of the government
offices. People became corrupt like they are in our government.
When you compromise someone you do it quietly so they're forced
to do your bidding for you because otherwise you will expose
them and ruin them. That is how the banking cartels took over
England in 1690. They fomented the rebellion against Charles
the First when Cromwell came to power. The bankers had been run
out of virtually every country of Europe, every feudal society,
because of their threat to them. They work in unison.
Parliaments are simply agents for the bankers. Are
congresses that also? Of course! Originally it wasn't set up
that way but it's become that way. It's not supposed to be.
They're supposed to represent the people.
"What impact does money have on your campaigning?" If you
say that to any of these elected people, what will they
say?
"Everything." And so that's what's happened. We've become a
totally money controlled culture. They're bribed, threatened,
paid off-they would say supported. Their constituents are
supporting them. The best way of dealing with that is just full
complete disclosure of where your money comes from so people
know who is controlling you. But these politicians will not say
that they're controlled.
"Oh, no! We represent our constituency," they'll say.
"Where does your money come from and what steps do you take
to protect those people who give you money?" you ask.
"I'll give my life!" the politician will say. That's
everything.
Jefferson said that every 20 years the citizens should get
mad and go down and clean out these corrupt public employees
that are flagrantly violating their oaths of office and openly
engaging in criminal conduct, for their own gain. This is
exactly why we had a revolution 220 years ago. The conditions
today are so much worse than they were with the money
collectors then. The agents then were not taking your children.
They weren't taking your lands. All they were doing was taxing
you to pay the troops, the British troops that were over here
fighting the French/Indian wars. But, they were not coming in
and telling you how to raise your children or telling you what
you could grow on your land. Of course, the industrial
revolution hadn't taken off then yet and it was a small country
of 2 1/2 million people. It had as many people in it-all the
colonists-as we have in the state of Oregon today. It was one
percent of our population today. But, the idea, the concept of
a country where the citizens were acknowledged as the sovereign
authority! That's the whole basis of this country, politically,
the sovereignty of the citizens and the limitations on
government. The government can only act in accordance with the
authority given it by the Constitution. If government exceeds
that authority-either the Legislature exceeds it by passing
laws that are unconstitutional, or the Executive through
carrying out policies that are unconstitutional-you have a
right to go into an independent third branch of government, the
Judicial, and assert in a lawful form why they can't do what
they're doing. The whole idea of the judicial system is an
independent, impartial body where that interaction can go on
and the ordinary pressures and stresses that build up between
government and people can be constantly released. That is the
release mechanism, the court system, so that you have this
ability to protect yourself if you have been violated. Well,
what I know is that they've all fused together, the
legislative, the judicial and the executive. That's what
legislator Gary George said.
"It has become One."
They have an agenda and the agenda is this New World Order,
to make us all submit to this economic political process that
has been set up. We are a totally money-controlled culture,
worldwide. Everywhere. You hear talk about democratic societies
and free markets but when every thing is bought and paid for,
it is just the few that own, control and run everything. They
are the ones that pay the politicians. They're the ones that
decide what politicians are elected president, prime minister,
premier and all the rest of it. Those people are the ones that
hire huge staffs to run all these government functions. But
it's totally money-driven. Everyone is working for money. And
so, they will not question the source, they will not not bite
the hand that's feeding them. That process says that you have
no rights. If you have no remedy you have no rights. Oh, we
will say that you can do this, if we want to. But we can also
say you can't do it. And so you have one or 2, very few,
dictating policy for everyone.
If you took all the money away from all the judges and all
the legislators, took all their financing away, how many of
them would you say would come to work the next day? None of
them! They're all money-driven and they're doing something for
money. The whole system, and the citizens too, has become
totally money-controlled and money-directed. Christ said,
'...be in it, but not of it...' and we're all in it! But when
you're of it, you get yourself in debt. They want to loan you
as much money as you can possibly stand so that you're totally
restricted and tied into their system, this big new one world
economic system. That's what's going on.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
We have a maritime commercial culture that has come into
being. Countries first became maritime cultures in ancient
Tyre, around 1000 BC. The Phoenicians had astronomy. The
cedars, like the cedars of Lebanon, were used to construct
their ships. They had engineers and architects. After the fall
of Rome, Europe went into the Middle Ages but the commercial
activity did not cease. If you took David Rockefeller and could
go back 100 generations you'd find exactly that same kind of
person who is a commercial instrument, buying and selling. The
numbering system and a limited alphabet system were developed
to facilitate commerce. That economic entity went to Venice.
The Venetians were the Phoenicians. Venetians,
Venetia-Phoenicia-Venetia-similar, like Big Apple and Babylon.
Tyre was along the coast of the east end of the Mediterranean
Sea and Venice up the coast of Italy. All the little islands
and coastal cities in between were little merchant cities.
It was a commerce-based culture, as was Carthage. Carthage
was an offspring of the Phoenicians. It was a colony of Tyre,
totally based on commerce. Sidon, Biblos and Tyre were the
major Phoenician cities but there were other smaller cities all
over that area. Cyprus became a commercial center as did Crete,
an old civilization too. When you have that commercially based
system, everything is property. Lives, everything is commerce.
The merchant codes facilitated trade, which was the backbone of
those commercial cultures. Those codes were applied to the
people in that commercial system. That system existed around
the Mediterranean and it became the law of the merchant.
When you ship merchandise, the person who is shipping has to
have a surety or a guarantee or a protection or he's not going
to ship it. Wherever they traded they had to have military
protection from the pirates that would prey on them. Around 300
AD Rome started to fall. A century later Attila the Hun swept
in. Venice was built on a series of small islands in the head
waters of the Adriatic so that this mass of barbarians couldn't
get out to them. That's how it got its start and kind of a
rugged type of people were living there early on. In 3 or 4
hundred AD the Venetians became a military power in and of
themselves. But there was no great statesman that came out of
Venice. If you read about Shylock in Shakespeare's The Merchant
of Venice, that's who came out of Venice and that is Milton
Brown. That merchant of Venice named Shylock is Milton Brown
incarnate because everything, EVerything is profit. But through
the centuries it became a commercial banking center and by 1000
AD it was controlled by Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire.
Constantinople had hegemony over that whole area. As
Constantinople became weaker Venice blossomed and became a
republic. It was a maritime commercial republic and so it was
not a land-based empire any longer, it was strictly a
commerce-based institution. The ruling people were the ruling
merchants and they had this republican form of government. They
had a doge and a house and a governing body but all they were
doing was directly passing the laws that protected them, the
law of merchant
There were no roads, just commerce in all seaports.
Constantinople, Athens, Alexandria, Marseilles, the Cyclides
Islands of Greece and many other little communities. All that
commerce was going back and forth so they needed a uniform code
giving merchants the ability to ship out their products and
have them protected. They had to have bills of exchange. No
mail service existed but they had corresponding banks,
privately owned banks to facilitate this commerce. That
developed for a thousand years around the Mediterranean before
it ever went outside the pillars of Hercules and up into the
Netherlands.
The Netherlands were trading colonies too, not to the extent
colonies were in the Mediterranean but Amsterdam, Holland, New
Harlem, all of those were commercial cities. But the people
were so much more predacious up there. Pirate tribes would loot
all the ships that came by. So the merchants got together in
Amsterdam and the merchant empires of the world and formed the
Hanseatic League for their common protection. It was similar to
our UN. They came together for mutual protection and to police
the pirates. The countries were not like we have them today.
They were city/states. They were these small commercial centers
along the coasts everywhere. Anywhere there was a commercial
center shipping products they wanted to be protected.
That system of commerce included private banking houses.
These very wealthy families became banking families that
facilitated trade. As feudal lords they would try to assert
their might but the church of Rome was pre-eminent. It formed
those wild barbarians into a docile peasantry. They were kept
ignorant in fear and superstition by the church, which was the
ruler over all of Christendom. In fact, the pope led armies.
The de Medicis of Florence for example. In Michelangelo's time
one of the popes was a de Medici, Catherine de Medici's father
or uncle. Catherine was from the de Medici family of Florence,
Italy and she became the queen of France, the wife of Henry II.
She had 3 sons who were all kings too, Henry the IV and two
others. She was responsible for the St. Bartholomew's Day
massacre. The Catholics were told to put X's on their doors
then the soldiers and Catholics went in and killed all the
Protestants. Brutal. They called families like the de Medici
dynasty the merchant princes, family dynasties that were
banking houses. That banking skill developed probably 3000
years ago. You could go back into these commercial centers and
go into the bankers' rooms and nothing has changed in 3000
years. It's always profit. How much is this product costing and
how much can we sell it for? What is the risk and what is the
return? That is the very nut of our whole commercial system
that has exploded now all around the world.
There was an ongoing conflict with the feudal aristocracy
that was in place. But the advent of the industrial revolution
gave rise to the ability to have unlimited wealth.
Historically, countries would get into battles but they would
fight like wild animals fight. They would come and they would
huff and puff and skirmish and fight pitched battles, but they
wouldn't destroy each other down to the last man. They would
exhaust themselves and when they would exhaust themselves
financially they would separate. But once central banks were
created and people gained the ability to create perpetual
wealth through the industrial revolution, then the slaughter
and loss became enormous.
Up until the industrial revolution, the feudal powers
controlled all the land mass and the huge armies. They were in
control because they had the troops. These commercial centers
would literally buy protection from the feudal system to be
able to command their own troops. Before the industrial
revolution the banking houses were not central banks, except
perhaps in Sweden. With the advent of the industrial revolution
that banking system started eliminating all of the existing
feudal systems because the feudal system would not recognize
the pre-eminent authority of the banks. The banks could extend
credit but they were dependent because the bankers do not have
a population base. That's all that the armies originally
protected was the wealth of the bankers. The armies were
conscripted in these feudal societies. The people were owned by
the lords and the barons. You had no rights. You were just
property, you were a serf, in the feudal system.
I was stunned when I read that David Rockefeller was
speaking to some press group 10 or 15 years ago and he was
thanking them for their cooperation because this could never
have been done if they had not cooperated. The media has a
stranglehold on information and news. It's just mind-boggling
the ability that the media has to keep from the people what is,
in fact, going on. It's just incredible. The internet is
probably one of the biggest tools against the media in this
fight.
If you look at all of the revolutions, all the wars since
the French Revolution, there has been this unabated move to
eliminate all the feudal societies from the face of the earth,
which has now been done. There is no country in the world that
is not in debt to the world bankers. They're all in
receivership too. We are in receivership. There is little or no
difference between bankruptcy, reorganization of the debt and
receivership. If you are in a bankrupt situation you cannot pay
your debts as they come due. That's bankruptcy. You are placed
into a receivership. A receivership usually is a creditors'
committee.
"Ok, this is how you're going to run your business," the
creditors say. The only purpose for running your business is to
service the debt that you owe. Pay the interest. I have come to
realize that that is the system that is in place now. Virtually
the entire world is in receivership. At some point they will
call in the debt and take possession of the assets and that is
what they are doing right now. Look at what is happening to all
of our lands! They're trying to run the people off the lands if
they're out in these rural areas. By taking out the Savage
Rapid Dam they drive them off their lands and drive them into
the cities. This is what they're doing down in Klamath Falls.
The same thing.
Wherever the government-Big Brother-comes now that's what
he's trying to do. He's trying to get you out of the backlands,
the country, so that the corporate farmers can come in and take
over there. You will be living in a city where you can be
controlled. That's their basic strategy. The water is still
shut off in Klamath Falls but I can't get them to really listen
to me yet. They still think that they can hire an attorney some
place and go some place and ask the system to undo what the
other part of the system is doing to them. The system is
restricting our use of the land, driving people off their lands
and creating biospheres under the guise of protecting the wild
animals. But what they are actually doing is dispossessing the
people of their land and turning the world into a global
managed plantation. It's an economic process. That law of
merchant that used to apply only to the Venetian merchants has
become the uniform commercial code (UCC) in which the whole
world economy is now entrenched.
'Oh, we're going to have camera surveillance' and ID cards
with your picture and your history on them 'to protect you'
they say. But what they're really using it for is to protect
themselves from us. If they truly want to protect us they
should operate under the rule of law! That's the protection we
need.
We have become like Gulliver and the Lilliputians. We've
been lying down and they've been throwing these strands over us
one at a time. At any time, one strand you could break. But
these strands kept going back and forth over us. They're
putting this web over us and once you're in that web by
yourself it's impossible to break it. And the UCC is the
ultimate web.
So the country, the United States, Inc., is a debtor and we
are an asset of a judgment debtor, basically. That's what the
UCC has done. When you are given your social security number,
that is the mark of the beast, because that is your straw man.
Your name all in capital letters is your straw man. When they
come after you for taxes your straw man is the legal fiction
that they employ and you are basically deemed to be a surety
for your straw man. The assumption is that because you are
receiving benefits you tacitly agree to this scheme. With that
code it is a disputable presumption that you consent to be just
a number in it. Your social security number is basically the
mark of the beast because you're just an asset of a bankrupt
debtor who's only purpose in life is to produce wealth to pay
off the bankrupt's debt. We are colonists. We're really only
paying the interest. The debt stays. They want to keep the debt
there so they can keep the control. That whole structure, that
whole edifice that the bankers have built up, they cannot come
and speak openly.
"We are your masters," although, I was shocked to see a
political cartoon in the paper recently showing the British
lion as a big fat plutocrat with a cigar and British money
control powers, riding on the back of lady liberty with a
harness! It looks to me like they're pulling back the curtain
as in the Wizard of Oz. You hear the little voice back there,
and you pull back the curtain and you see this little rat, I
call him Milton Brown, this con man manipulating it all. That's
what we are dealing with. If people step up and say,
"We will not tolerate that..." WHOOF!! Like Mother. Mother
chases them away. I go up and arrest Brown. I chase him out of
the courtroom. And still, nothing. The system that is supposed
to have this mechanism in it, this release valve, is frozen. No
matter what they steal, what they do, the children they take,
Pam's children, property, whatever they take, you cannot by
yourself, or even with a small group, penetrate it because the
system is in place. People don't want to come to that
realization but it's true.
In the commercial culture everything is an asset, including
people. Revelations talks about how in the last days they are
selling all these various goods, including slaves and the souls
of men. Body parts, all of that. This is what they're doing.
The commercial culture is dictating the kind of human beings
that we are to produce by the programs, the education programs
and all that. They're creating this kind of a mindless,
spineless, asexual 'it' that will just perform a function for
them. Like any other domestic animal they need this human life
form to perform the services that they need to have performed
in order to run the global plantation. That's basically what
they're doing. I look at people in stores and wherever I go and
think, my God people! If you tell them to defend themselves,
defend freedom or liberty, it's a totally foreign concept to
them.
A commercial culture does not have a soul. It is driven
solely by money. We live in the golden age of civilization. All
of these things that we have, it is marvelous. But what
frightens me is that it is totally heartless too. It has no
soul to it at all. In the business world the drive for profit
is the absolute controlling factor. It's what structures every
business entity. It's what structures every political entity.
It gives us all of these things. But step back from it and ask
yourself.
"How can I control this fire that we need?" If we didn't
have it we'd all be hoeing corn someplace on a little patch of
ground, trying to subsist. But people think aHA!
"I've arrived! Here and now! Oh this is wonderful! We just
love to play!" and they become totally pleasure-driven. That's
all they want to do is please themselves. They want to retire,
they want to play, they want to play golf.
"Oh Roger I can't stand it. Don't talk to me. I just want to
have fun. I just want-I just want-I just want..." like
children.
Adult animals out in the wild, what do they do? They protect
the young ones from danger. If wolves come up they will put the
children in the middle and drive off the wolves to protect that
animal herd. Should we do less?. We're human tribes. We're
totally dependent for the quality of our life on one another.
What I'm seeing that is so dangerous is the evaporation of
people with a sense of adult responsibility. People! What-how
are we being managed? How are we being run? Are you watching
them? Are you scrutinizing them? And this is what they do not
do. It's so hard to get people to do it.
Without the world banking community and that financial
component we would not have the high tech quality of life that
we have now. It is essential to have the money for the
research. Even the wars were the impetus for so much of the
science that we have today. But what is so dangerous is the
unwillingness to see the danger with which we are all
confronted. It is so hard to make people wake up to that. This
is a design by a few to control everyone. The very nature of a
commercial entity, it's very function, is to protect and
increase it's wealth. It has a life of it's own. That is to
protect it, to increase it and to diminish risk and threat to
it. That economic equation is the driving engine. But, if you
let it get out of control it's like a train going down the
track with no throttle. And it's the people that have to be the
throttle, that have to restrict it and limit it. And you do
that by compelling the government to comply with the rule of
law.
But the only place you can do that is in the courtroom. You
cannot go out and confront them with arms because you're then a
terrorist and you'll be wiped out. So, you have to go into the
courtroom and that's why they've kept such an iron hand on
these courtrooms. Security and 'All rise' and it's this very
defined and ritualized procedure. The more corrupt it is the
more ritualized it is. It's like the British-Her Majesty! The
Empress of India! The Sovereign of All! It's just to dazzle the
eyes of the commoner. The temples and the churches they
build.
They build these huge mosques so that when you walk in, the
peasant who can't read, can't write, he's just awestruck. When
the ones from the crusades went into Constantinople it was just
like taking my father when he was a 10-year-old kid, raised in
a small town in Montana, and putting him into New York City
with the subways and skyscrapers. It would just be overwhelming
to him. Always they want to overwhelm you with the form so that
you don't address the substance. And the substance is that in
this country there is one class of citizens, all equal. Equal
protection, due process of law, that means a fair hearing,
before you can take anything from a sovereign citizen. That
means the ability to go into that courtroom and to speak in a
normal tone of voice, charging anyone with whatever you want to
charge them with. If I'm saying something false let them
challenge me, question me in a courtroom, under oath. If I've
said it falsely and maliciously I'm liable for what I've said.
But they've put these political prostitutes in there who
protect the perpetrators. The very people that the system is
set up to guard us against, they're protecting! They've just
spun it around.
What has happened is that the separation of power, the
concept that you have 3 different branches of government, each
forming checks and balances on the other branches, to prevent
centralized absolute power from being vested in one authority,
that has evaporated. They give lip service to it but into these
judgeships they have placed individuals who simply rubberstamp
whatever action the government takes against you. Where I
really see that is in the federal courts when they created the
Internal Revenue service. The authority to tax by code is
limited. The IRS has broadened that to include all individuals.
Originally a person or individual was a corporate entity. Only
those that were living in the District of Columbia, or the
territories, were subject to the tax. Nowhere in the internal
revenue code does it say that a person, an individual has to
pay the tax. But they interpret that and they make you file
these returns and if you don't they come after you and
prosecute you.
The US attorneys are all appointed by the Attorney General.
The Attorney General can hire and fire all US attorneys and
this is what Janet Reno did when she came into office. She
fired 92 US attorneys all across the country and put in her own
people, who would be amenable to her policies. Reno, of course,
was acting under the direction of President Clinton, who is a
lapdog politician for the New World Order. So, they have taken
over the control of the executive branch. George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson were not controlled by them that much. The
first few presidents were mindful of that. But before long,
particularly with Van Buren, who was from New York, there was
this strong control that comes out of the banking centers. So,
what I have seen is that the Executive branch and the court
system are totally controlled.
The court system no longer performs the function that it was
intended to perform. No longer is it an open arena where a
citizen can come in and challenge the constitutionality of an
act that has been passed. That was the original intent of the
court system. Now, of course, they've turned this whole thing
upside down. It was supposed to be separate equal branches of
government where, if legislation was passed there had to be
some way to challenge it. The mechanism for challenging it was
to go into court and have it struck down as being
unconstitutional. But now, if the president doesn't veto it, it
goes into existence. If there are some filthy, vile pornography
films that are being pandered to the public the money interests
will come in and protect their profits.
"Oh, you cannot stop that, why that's first amendment,
freedom of speech." But when a person has been wrongfully taxed
or their property taken and due process has been completely
ignored and they say it's unconstitutional, many judges have
given an entirely different response.
"I don't want to hear the Constitution mentioned in this
courtroom!!" They don't say that to the big movie moguls when
they come in about constitutional rulings. The whole system has
become corrupted by the money powers.
Now if you've got some huge law firm and you've got crooks
on both sides, then you may get a fair fight. But, that's the
problem. The system has been corrupted. The little guy, if he's
up against the insurance company, if he's up against all these
government agencies, it's all stacked against him. He hires a
small sole practitioner not realizing he is David against
Goliath because the agency, his thieving attorney, the judge,
they're all working together. That's what is set up in our
court system. They work together. If the corrupt attorney or
agency files a motion to dismiss your complaint the judge will
grant it out of hand. He's not supposed to do that. In the
Gaston case they have all the facts on their side. There's no
dispute as to those facts. A jury found that the judges were
conspiring in Judge Ertsgaard's court. So it was assigned to
Judge Fred Avera's court and Avera, on the motion of the state,
dismissed the complaint saying it was frivolous, totally
ignoring what had been established in the previous case. This
is how treacherous and shameless our court system has
become.
Suing Janette Kent was partially just another way to get it
back into court but also, I'm a 25% owner of that estate by fee
agreement. I want to be judicially declared the 25% owner so
that I can pursue these individuals as an owner, in my own
right. That's the reason I filed that lawsuit against her and
also it gave me the opportunity to go into that court out there
and rip 'em apart, just talk openly with all those people in
that courtroom. They entered their motion for change of venue
and I appealed that.
You can file anything. The problem is what kind of action?
Will the other side move to dismiss it? They probably will.
There are Oregon Rules of Civil Procedure about a complaint
stating that you have to name the parties and the underlying
Cause of Action. When you have the case Pam has there are
probably 2 or 3 hundred different cases that could be developed
out of the fact basis that exists in her case. She's been
victimized by the system. She and Will Gaston are being
criminally victimized by the corrupt judicial system, by the
Child Services Division. You have the courts trying to protect
the Child Services Division, which became involved in covering
up pornography, engaging in pornography and I'm not so sure
that those judges haven't been themselves viewing that, not
with a critical eye but for entertainment purposes. The Oregon
Rules of Civil Procedure can be found in the Oregon Revised
Statutes. There is a section called Oregon Rules of Civil
Procedure. That is available.
A courtroom with a judge is simply a place to make a record.
If I was governor of this state I'd make judges wear referee
striped robes, black and white like referees-not these black
robes like a priest's robe-so people would see them for what
they are, referees in a dispute. But that, of course, is how
the system has been corrupted. They put into place these judges
who ignore their oaths of office and have an agenda. That has
evolved into a situation where they are always against the
victim, the person coming into court for relief. The judge is
always on the other side. Usually, most of the judges that are
like this are cowards, they're that shameless. They're usually
cowardly men. They will not stand up for the truth. They hide
behind their robes. They have the police officers, who are
trained in crowd control and intimidation and they usually get
the biggest ones to come into those courts, to sit there and
control the crowd and to intimidate them.
"Stand up! Take off your hat," they say. Do this! Do that!
Those are all means of intimidating the people. To break
through that I realized I needed people. When I go into the
courthouse I get the crowd of people and I get them in the
lobby of the courthouse. That serves 2 functions. It
intimidates the guards but it also focuses the attention of the
group. I've found that people, when they come into the
courthouse, so often, unless they are experienced, they get
very nervous. They want to be distracted. They have to run off
and go have a cigarette or go to the bathroom or go call
someone. They have a nervousness and they want to do something
to break that nervousness. They will walk into the courtroom
visiting with one another and not really being totally
attentive to what is going on. Because of that I've been
arrested numerous times whereas I may otherwise not have been,
just because they were distracted talking, visiting with one
another.
"People, pay attention! Pay attention!" I say. When they
paid attention the guards would back off. When they were
distracted the guards would move in. So, that's what I do. I
get the people in the lobby of the courthouse.
"This is what's going on here." Kettleberg case-"Brown and
Hahn murdered their partner, forged the documents, these judges
are protecting this." in the Chet Jones case-"forging those
documents out there and running through sham proceedings"-in
the Gaston case, the Murietta case, all these different cases,
that's what I do. I get this large crowd of people. All these
clerks see that crowd assembling and know why I'm there. When
they see that crowd coming in talking about the corruption it
intimidates the hell out of them. They go and lock their
courtroom doors and I'll see them standing inside looking at us
out in the hallway. This is how intimidated they are.
This gal Sue Guthrie is being prosecuted by the Bar. She's
an attorney. She's been helping out somewhat but she was
sensitive about having us come in because she didn't want to be
too closely associated with the group. Now, she's being run
through prosecution. She's calling me for help. I tell people,
with what's going on, you cannot ride 2 horses. You're either
with the crooks or you're with the victims. You have to make
that choice. People don't want to do it because they're afraid.
They're gripped by fear. They're going to lose something, their
standard of living, or something is going to happen to them.
They're going to lose some money. That's what motivates most
people.
People think the system runs on automatic pilot. In a free
society, the number one responsibility of a citizen, if he's
fortunate enough to have been born in a society that protects
his rights from birth, is to recognize and preserve those
individual rights for himself and his progeny. That's not the
history of civilization at all. The history of civilization is
master and slave. In this country, through the revolution, we
created the Constitution as a protection against tyranny. But
it cannot stand by itself. It needs the support of the honest
citizens in the community. And what I'm seeing is that people
just, out of fear, a threat or apathy, they will not stand up.
They will run away. And when you run away from tyranny you play
right into the hands of the tyrant because, of course, that's
what he wants you to do! He wants to threaten and intimidate
you. When you stand up to a tyrant they always fold and run
away. Their whole game is bluff and I see this with these
judges.
"I'm warning you Weidner..." threatening me in the courtroom
and then I see them out in the street.
"Come here judge. I want you to talk to these people about
the corruption that is going on in these courts," and they run.
They take off and they run.
The laws make the citizens the sovereign authority. That's
not what the courts tell you but that's the reality. All judges
take oaths of office to uphold the Constitution. The citizens
do not take oaths of office to uphold the Constitution. We are
the sovereigns. We are the ones that these public officials
take an oath to protect. When people realize that, and they go
into the court, they watch those court proceedings just like
they would watch if they were looking through glass while
burglars were raiding their houses, not in awe, but just
intently. They watch what is going on. Look at these judges not
with eyes of respect but look at them with a controlled
contempt and observe what they are doing. What I tell people
when I go into those courtrooms is this.
"If the judge says anything to me people, you say in one
voice, 'Let him speak!'" The whole group says it. 'Let him
speak!' or 'Let her speak!' And when the group does it, it's
hard for that judge to take on that entire body of people. If
he wants to hold the whole body in contempt he'll tell the
guards to clear the courtroom. But he will not arrest the whole
body of people. If you have the single person standing there at
the bench trying to speak, the judge will tell him to be quiet.
The judge will have the guard arrest him on contempt charges.
The party that's in the courtroom is trying to remember what
he's to say, and then if he has to take on that judge too
there's just a tremendous amount of stress on him. By the crowd
taking on the judge then the crowd backs the judge down. That's
the key. On a case I was at in Judge Herrell's court I told the
party that if his attorney wouldn't speak up, fire the
attorney. So, the attorney didn't speak up.
"Fire him! Fire him!" I started saying in a controlled
whisper.
"Clear the courtroom!" the judge said.
"People these are sham proceedings," I said.
"One more word out of you Weidner and I'll have you taken
out of here!"
f
"That's the same thing you did to Janette Kent when she
tried to speak the truth in
this courtroom," and WHAM! He got me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
It was awfully hard
for me to make Pam Gaston understand the
process of how a case goes through the court. When it begins,
first of all there are motions. If either side has
a motion that they want to disqualify the judge, that's usually
heard first. Then they will ask if there is any opening
statement. You get up and tell what your case is about, and the
other side does too. Then you call your first witness, they
call their witnesses, then you cross-examine. You call rebuttal
witnesses, and you make a closing argument telling what the
facts show.
Well, Pam would want to start trying the case and
would become argumentative and would just insist on speaking.
So, it was a little tough at first to get her to understand
the dynamic. Now she does, and she does very well at it. But
she's rare. I've found few that have the ability to do that.
They get upset and angry. I try to have them impose a mental
discipline so they're not reacting each moment to what they are
feeling. Most people want to tell you what they feel. They're
mad, they're happy. They cannot take themselves out emotionally
and speak objectively. You have to take yourself out of your
past and view it with a dispassionate quality because if you
get angry, it's like short-circuiting your memory. A person that
is angry simply cannot think. He is filled with emotion and
rage and his memory shuts down.
All that a courtroom is, is a place to make a public
record of events that have occurred in the past. What you are
doing is coming into that courtroom and relating those
events that happened in the past. You're doing that through
witnesses' testimony, and people want to listen to that. But if
you come in and, "...he's a crook!" and you just get angry, then
people watch your anger and they watch the judge react to your
anger, and they do not pay attention to the facts in the case.
That's what goes on.
There's nothing worse for a person than to have his children
taken from him, particularly if he thinks the children
are being abused while in foster care. This is so often what
I'm finding, to my horror. I'm finding that these children are
being abused, or they're being brainwashed in
these foster homes, turned against their parents, horrible
stuff. And the parents are just in a state of shock. I see this
so often. They walk almost robot-like, trying to cope with it.
They cannot detach themselves from it and deal with it
objectively. They are totally subjectively involved in their
problems. You get a whole group of people like that, it's so
hard to work with them because when someone is injured and
grieving, what they want to do is tell that story. It's all
boiling inside of them, and they want to tell it. That has a
soothing effect, to release it and tell it. But what I tell
people is that we are at war. And you simply cannot have a
bunch of soldiers going around telling each other about the
horrible personal things that happened to them because it
takes the focus away from the primary purpose for which they are
there: mutual protection. People get impatient and short with
each other, and they can't listen to it and they don't listen.
When someone is grieving, they're not listening when
another person is speaking. At best, they're just waiting for
their chance to tell their own story, hoping that someone can help
them.
Even though you lose, you still win because what you are
doing in these courtrooms is exposing the corruption that is
going on. And the worse it is, the better it demonstrates to the
public, who cannot believe it, what you've been saying about
how corrupt it is. Judges, like this Fred Avera will
comment:
"You have a good point there Mrs. Gaston. Yes, I understand
that...," acting like he is going to go along with it. And a lot
of judges will do that all throughout the hearing.
"But I find this other is so...," they will say at the end.
That puts doubt into your supporters' heads that maybe there is
something wrong with your case. And, when it creates doubt in
your supporters minds, they back off. They start questioning
you.
"Well, why didn't you do this? You should have done that...,"
which just absolutely fatigues you to listen to. So, I tell
people that the worse it is in that courtroom, the better it
is, because what we do is put it into the paper, and we
spread it out for everyone to see how horrible it was.
When I was getting into this early on, some of my supporters
would look to compliment, at any turn, the judges that were
hearing the case.
"They finally gave him a fair hearing," they would say. He gave
me a "fair" hearing, but he ignored the evidence and ruled against
me, which he never should have done. But my supporters made it
sound like I got a fair hearing. Well, he let me speak, but as far as
ruling on the merits of the case, there was no evidence to
support what he did.
People will say that the system can't do that to them, or
that they're right. They will find something that will confirm
their belief that they are right. Causes of Action when you
are injured are what we learned in law school. If it's a tort,
there's no contract. You have a duty. We have duties one to
another. And if you violate that duty and you injure me, and you
don't have justification for doing it, you've committed a tort.
They call it a tort and I can sue you for damages. You run into
my car. Negligent. You don't keep your sidewalk clear of ice.
This is how issues come before a court. But in law school, they
do not teach you how to deal with corrupt judges. Never,
ever is that even mentioned! The judge may have made an
erroneous ruling, and you can appeal it because he did not
follow the proper rule. In a court system it's all supposed to
be based on precedent.
There is a certainty to the law. There's the case law that
deals with certain kinds of cases. You go into the law
library and you read a case, and then you go to what they call
Shepard's, and you can "Shephardize" it. Shepardizing lists
subsequent cases in which the ruling has been overturned,
reversed or modified. This is the research that goes into
practicing law. When you prepare trial memorandums, you are
supposed to give all this law to the judge. The judge looks
at it, and he's briefed. He doesn't know the facts in the case,
he just sits. But you submit a memorandum, the other
side submits a memorandum, both showing what case law
supports your position. This is what is supposed to go on. This is what
we learned in law school. You put on the facts that support
your position. And then, at the conclusion of that, after each
side has put on its facts, the judge speaks.
"Anything more you want to say, Mr. A?"
"No."
"Anything more you want to say Mr. B?"
"No."
"These are the findings of fact that I'm making. I'm
finding yut da da da, and these are the conclusions of law that
I am finding, this rule applies...," and so you have a foundation
laid there where the facts are presented, the judge applies the law to
the facts, and you have a decision. And then you appeal that
decision if one side or the other doesn't like it for whatever
reason. Perhaps he made an error. But it's all in the record.
Well, that is what they give lip service to. And that's what
your attorney will do when you go to see him. He will pull out
a law book off the shelf.
"Well, here in Jones vs. Smith, it says they can't do it,"
and he's trying to win your confidence.
"No, they're not going to get away with...," depending on how
much money you have, because the meter is always running in his
head. And it's always, "How much money can I get out of this
case? How much is it going to cost me? What are the pros and
the cons of it for me?" from a money perspective only. He's
always looking at it from his side, but he has to convince you.
This is why they don't talk very much, lawyers don't. They're
feeling you out. What they want to do is win your confidence
so that you become totally completely controlled by them.
"We need 10 more thousand," he'll say.
"Ok, here you are. Do this. Do that." They get in this
position of control over you. And, if you've got a good
attorney, and you have a clean court, you want to do exactly
what he says because that's the expertise you are buying. It's
like going out into the wild. Whom do you want taking you
through there? Do you want some old scout who's been across
that swampland a thousand times and has the scars to show
for it, or do you want someone who's just been giving tours
down at Disneyland in Jungle World? The real world experience
is not what you learn in moot court in law school. You do not
learn treachery and deceit and duplicity and set-up and sham
proceedings and all of that. That is what you cannot acquire by
reading a book.
"Roger, I just didn't see it," Ed Snook said. He got mad at
me early on, when I was talking about the corruption of the
judges. Now he sees it. And once you see it, it's just like
you've been deceived by someone. You have an image in your head
and you react based on that image and that perception. Once you
see the person do something totally out of character, you see
them for what they really are. You have a perception, even with
mates sometimes. Each side tries to put on an air, a pretense,
to try to impress the other. They each want to have the
other think highly of them. But they're just creating an image.
A lot of people do that. They create images for each other.
They play-act with each other until things get to a certain
point. Then you see it, you've been around, and WHAM! You see a
totally different side. Well, what's so dangerous is that, with
the law, the other side is always the money! Always, the money is
controlling in a situation. The little guy can virtually never, ever win.
It's impossible.
So, that's what has evolved, and that's the reality of what
we're living with. And anything else people think other than
that, they're naïve. And if you try to tell people they are
naïve they just rear up at you, and you have to coax them
because they have to be led at their own pace. I've learned the
hard way that you just have to let go of them until they will
come to you.
Janette Kent would get furious at me and attack me. She
thought my angering the judges was causing her grief. But she
has been totally relentless in fighting the corruption. It took
her 12 years to finally realize that the court system is
corrupt. Pam Gaston has some of that in her too. She gets
enraged, and when that happens, anyone who's around her gets
verbally clawed and mauled. But she, too, is relentless in the
courtroom.
Every time someone does what I say, they prevail. That is "The
Weidner Method." All I'm doing is creating the environment where
the rules of law are observed. And I'm doing that simply by
bringing this body of people in and forcing that court system
to do what I learned was the process 35 years ago, and that's to
allow you to open up and make a record of whatever injury
you've suffered. But look what has happened in the system,
now that this "New World Order" crowd has taken over.
The bought-and-paid-for politicians have appointed these judges,
and no one will run against them—you have to be a member of
the Bar to run for judgeship—because if you take one on and you start
talking about the corruption, they'll hit you just like a viper
strike because it is a poisoned environment. Those people in it
are existing off of a poisoned environment. If you threaten
that, you threaten them. They are all interlinked together.
They've all covered each others' backsides for so long, they've
gotten to the lowest common denominator where they're covering
and protecting someone like a Milton Brown, who none of them
will even acknowledge that they know! They won't even
acknowledge that they know him, and here he was a member of the
Bar. I'm a wordsmith and I cannot think of words bad enough for
him. He's a murderer, a vile, treacherous, shameless, thieving
murderer, and he gloats over it. He boasts about it, about doing
people in, causing them death by his treachery.
Brown once traded a man his office building for the man's
farm so the guy could retire and get rental income. But Brown
controlled the tenants that were in his old office building. As soon as
he made the trade, he had all the tenants move out of the office building
so that the man couldn't make the underlying mortgage payment. Brown
had his farm and then he foreclosed, so he got his building
back. And the guy came looking for him just mad as hell,
looking for him, and he ultimately died, he was that distressed.
"Well, I guess everything's coming up roses," Brown says,
with him dead up here. And he also wiped out Doctor Brady and
built his home on Brady Road. And so, every day, he drives back and
forth over Brady. This is how sicko this guy is, and he's being
protected by our judicial system. You cannot get anything any
worse than that.
The evil is the pretense. If those judges sat down there
with patches over one eye, scars, and flew the Jolly Roger in the
courtroom, and that's what they should do, then when you came in,
you could clearly see who it is. You could see the wolf, not the wolf
in sheep's clothing. And that's what the whole system has
evolved into.
At the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, after the battle
of Waterloo, the French House of Rothschild and the English
House of Rothschild met together. From that time on, these
historic enemies, England and France, were locked-at-the-hip
allies. They fomented the Civil War. They were going to break
the South, in league with Mexico. They had French and English
armies in Mexico waiting to invade when, at the request of
Abraham Lincoln, Alexander II sent the Russian fleets off
both coasts blockading the harbors, and that stopped them.
Czarist Russia came in as our ally against the House of
Rothschild. That's basically what was going on. That's how
powerful you are when you control the banking houses of
France and the banking houses of England. Look at the map
of the last century and where the French flag and the English flag
flew around the world. They say the sun never set on the
English empire, and it never set on the French empire either.
I read these books. In 1895, the world bankers met in Basil,
Switzerland. In 1895, they had a supply line from England to
South Africa, the Boer war, and they were supplanting the
Boers, who were from Amsterdam. Holland was a maritime power
before England, and Holland established South Africa. At the
congress in Basil, the bankers planned the future
world wars, the creation of the state of Israel, and the
creation of the super international banker state of the United
States. Through the Spanish-American war, the bankers took over
Spain's possessions. We took over Cuba, the Philippines,
Hawaii, Puerto Rico. All of that came in to us at the
conclusion of the Spanish-American War. Then, right away, there
was the war between Japan and Russia, in 1905, when the
Rothschilds were feeding both sides and then pulled support
away from Russia. That was to allow the softening up of Russia.
Imperial Russia was standing in their way. They had shown their
might in our Civil War, and so they had to be reduced. Wilhelm,
Von Hindenburg, Moltke after the Franco-Prussian War, all of
these Germans were a military caste that was running Germany,
and they were a power to reckon with. They had thumped Napoleon
III, who was Rothschild's Prince Charming. And they were
expanding into these foreign markets, competing with England
and France.
England and France were the imperial powers. Spain was in
decline, so it was just basically France and England. We were an
isolationist country. England and France were creating the
international markets. France went into Indo-China. They were
looking for raw materials and markets. They wanted the raw
materials, then they do the processing of the product and they
would make the money. That's where the money is made, taking
a raw material, paying little or nothing for it, getting cheap labor,
manufacturing a product, selling it and controlling the
markets. That's their whole focus. That's what they do. And so
they planned those wars.
The communist movement was an outgrowth of the French
Revolution. That was when it was first foisted on the people.
It was done as a means of turning the poor against the rich.
But it was done to eliminate the rich and not to upgrade the
poor. That was just a pretense, and it always is. If you look
back, if you look behind the Russian movement, if you look
behind Lenin and Trotsky, Lenin's brother had been hung for an
assassination attempt on the Czar. Lenin was used by the
international bankers at the time of the Menscheviks and some
of those other groups. The Bolsheviks were actually the
smallest group, but they were the most ruthless. Lenin was put
in there by this international bankers group. When that
happened, of course, they slaughtered the royal family, anyone
who had nobility. They wiped out all of the young men of
fighting age, and they wiped out the aristocracy, the
intellectual class—slaughtered them by the millions to create a
condition. It's not to win the war, but it's to create a
condition. And that's why you can never, ever, say it's over.
"Oh, we're going to win! The war's over!" as with Japan or
Germany.
"Oh, we've conquered them, and freedom rings!" Well, they've
got us by the throat now. They do! They control our
politicians, they control our judges, they control our
bureaucracies, they control the CIA, all of these alphabet soup
agencies, and our justice department, that's what they're doing.
This New World Order has put them in there, so that we just have
a huge consumer army of dumbed-down people out there working,
literally, on the global plantation, doing some little function
or task. If you're skilled as a doctor or as a builder, you can
make a lot of money doing those tasks, as long as you stay out
of the legal system. But if some crook draws you into that
system, once you're in there, it's just like going out and running
in a gold field and boy, you pick it up.
"Hey, I've got all this money! I've got it all in my
pockets," and they let you prance and dance around, but you're
encompassed by a circle of thieves.
"Hey, I'm wealthy! Look at me...," until they want it. And as
soon as they want it, they just reach out and they sue you. And
they pull you into that courtroom. And as soon as they pull you
into that courtroom, WHZHTT! They strip you to the bone.
I see people in a little bubble on top of a piranha
pool.
"See me," and they're out there swinging their golf clubs
and having their dinners, and they're talking and driving around
in their Suburbans and going and talking about their trips and
their vacations and all of that kind of thing. And then all of
a sudden they get into a divorce, a business, or some event
that draws them into the court system, and then they implode. I
had one just called me tonight.
"Why, I had this and I had that, and now my wife ran off with
my best friend and I'm being arrested and charged." Just
being completely devoured. They think if they
tell you that yut tuh tuh, yut tuh tuh, it just rocks my
head. They just want want to tell someone. They always want to
tell you what happened over and over again. You can speak
for a thousand years and it's not going to change the system.
The only thing that changes the system is what we are doing.
We're standing up, we're telling the truth, and we're speaking
the truth in those courtrooms. If you don't do that, we are
doomed. We're absolutely doomed. We are doomed to live just
like chickens in a big chicken yard. And the chicken
keeper—who is the wolf tending the flock—he just reaches
in and grabs you. And who is it? Well, it's the other attorney,
it's your attorney, and it's the judge. And what do they want?
They want every nickel that you have. That's what they want.
Your attorney wants it, the other attorney wants it, and the
judge is bought and paid for, and he doesn't get anything unless
that happens. So, it's the dog and pony show that's put on in
front of you by your own attorney, setting you up to walk you in
there. That's the treachery. That is the evil. And how those men
can look themselves in the eye in the mirror, I simply do not
understand. I don't know how they can possibly sleep at night.
The reason you pay an attorney the exorbitant fees that you
do is because he's going to become your alter ego. That's what
you pay him for. You pay him $200 an hour, and he needs that
because he's got a secretary and a staff and a researcher and
all that, and he's had to go to school to learn how the system
works, to learn the laws, and to learn how to take on your
case and go in and fight for it. And even if you've got a
clean court system, you're always dealing with an opponent who
is trying to pull a fast one. Always. And you've got to be on
your feet and deft enough to anticipate that to prevail.
The only reason an attorney should ever take you to court is if he
can assure you: "I think we can do it. I think we have a good chance."
Otherwise, save your money. If it's an impossibility, he should
be saying: "Cut your losses." I can never get any of those people in
the patriot movement to understand that.
I tell people: "Listen like you're in class." I'm not asking, "What
do you think?" That's what is so difficult to do. The core of my
problem is the inability to get people to sit and listen to
what I'm telling them, not as a theory. I find that in the
patriot movement everyone has a theory. Everyone who gets up
and speaks wants to talk about what they know. They want
to have other people listen to what they are saying. And
they're simply naïve about the system.
"Oh, they've got the blue-fringed flag on it, or they've got
the capital U. They've got my name all in capital letters and
it should be in upper and lower case," they say. And maybe it
should be. But that's not the core problem. It's that you
cannot get into a courtroom and talk to a group of people in a
normal tone of voice about what has, in fact, happened to you.
I think in large part honest people are just naïve.
My father was pathologically honest. Never, ever was he in a
cutthroat business environment. He was just never around that.
My mother said he sold cars for a short period of time, but he
got beat out of a couple of commissions and just would have
nothing more to do with it. He worked in the fire department
where you take an order, you give an order, you don't lie, you
don't cheat, you don't do those things. And that's the kind of
a climate I grew up in. My mother and father would call me on
that in a minute. I would never come and brag that I cheated
someone or got by by lying. That was never acceptable. It was
condemned. What I'm seeing now in our culture is that
how you deceive other people is what is glorified.
It's all deceit, the whole system, the government system.
Here we hire these people to do certain ministerial functions,
to provide public services, to construct public works, safety
and those kinds of things, and they take an oath that they will
do this, respecting the rights of the citizen. And what do we
have? We have a political structure that is totally money
controlled and protected by an armed force that is tantamount to
a national police force.
What we are drifting into is national socialism. It's
Nazism, which means national socialism. That's where you have a
central government, which our founding fathers tried to
prevent. Central governments and standing armies, they knew
then as we know now, are controlled by money. That's the
whole purpose, the control of the power structure. And what is
the power structure? The power structure is the money
structure. The people always have to balance that. You cannot
do away with it. If we did not have the money structure we
would not have any of our highways, we wouldn't have any of our
improvements. You have to have pools of money to create the
engineering and all these things that go into making new
products and new designs. You have to have that.
If it depended on people like my parents, we'd all still
be living on farms, having little plots of land, everyone
growing their own food and making their own clothes. We need
those skills, but we need an enlightened, informed and alert
citizenry watching them all the time, watching our public
servants, who are our employees. We are the employers. You
watch the employees to make sure that they are doing what we
employed them to do. We created the Security and Exchange
Commission to regulate the stockbrokers. We have the justice
department to prosecute criminal behavior. We have all of these
statutes on the books that I could use to prosecute anyone that
I've come into contact with either because they are actively
participating in fraud or they are public officials who
know about the fraud and are not doing anything about it. That's
called misprision of a felony. That's when a public official is
informed of a criminal act and doesn't do anything about it.
When the Constitutional Congress came together and selected
George Washington as the Commander-in-Chief of the continental
army, the committee members were all out there giving him
advice to do this and do that, and he just had to assert his
authority. In ancient Rome when they had a disaster, when the
barbarians would be at the gate, they would give one person
dictatorial powers for 6 months to deal with it. We have
chaos in this patriot movement because they get these huge egos
that they are right. If you say, "You're not right," they will
argue. I've had them threaten me with arrest at these meetings
for just trying to explain to them not that I know everything, but
just saying what I do know. And I do know how the court system
works. That's what I'm expert on. And I know that they don't
know how it works. I've seen them in court. They talk like
buc buc buc buc buc, until they get into court and then
they get frozen vocal chords and they come back out. It's
the hardest thing.
Now with this judicial counsel, and with the
paper, I want to set up an editorial board, so you have a group
of six or seven people like a board of directors. I hope, as we
continue to expand, things will become more orderly. There is
no council that makes a collective decision based on the best
judgment of the participants and then carries that out. You
can't get them to do that. They all have their own agendas and
they're seeing issues from their individual perspectives. You can't
get them to take their personal problems and set them aside.
That's always pulsating in their consciousness because it's
causing them so much grief they're inclined to it. But
I think with this newspaper going out everywhere, what I know
is that we've overthrown this corrupt regime. They cannot show
up in court. That's the key.
What they're trying to do is starve us out because in our
system, without money you can't fight. It has been difficult
for me to create a financial support base because they will dry
it up right away, given the enormous magnitude of this.
I've tried changing the venue to federal court but
it's basically the same wherever we go. It is so shocking to me
that it can go on this long. We've completely exposed all this.
There's no one challenging the truthfulness of anything that
I'm saying. I'm arresting Milton Brown. The police are
threatening me with arrest for performing a citizen's arrest on
him. This is how corrupt the system has become.
I became aware of the corruption in July of 1990. I was
first arrested in February of 1991. Before that, when we had
our first trial before Judge Crookham, he conducted a fair
trial and Janette Kent won. I had no idea that this corruption
had been set up in the system. I had a regard for virtually
every judge. Some of them I didn't think were very bright, but I
never questioned their basic integrity. Subsequently, Crookham
retired, Londer took over and this whole movement set in to
protect the theft of an estate, in the Kettleberg case, which is
now worth around $100,000,000.
What they now know is that, when we come into that courtroom,
if the guards are threatening at all, we will confront them.
When I was out at Judge Sealander's a couple years ago—I'd been
brought into Sealander's court previously, chained up, four guards
on me in that courtroom, in shackles—when I came back
again, I brought Lou Beres, Jesse and others in the courtroom with
me, this big crowd, and all of a sudden there were six or eight
guards coming up the steps into the courtroom. As they
came in—and I handed out papers to them whenever I was out
there—I confronted them.
"You guards know what's going on. These attorneys and judges
here are forging these documents, stealing this property, and
you're doing nothing about it." And they just gave me this "big
look." They went over and sat down. No more threat.
They know that when they arrest me, they have to bring me into
the courtroom on the arrest charge. And when they bring me there in
custody, I turn on them in the court room. I've subpoenaed
the judges into the courtroom and put them on the stand.
"I've named you, haven't I judge?" I've had nine of these
judges on the witness stand, charging them.
"I've named you, Judge Peterson," while he's sitting on the
bench in his robe, former Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme
Court. They never question. If I talked that way about you,
you would get fire in your eye, and if I had you in a courtroom and
was attacking you like that, you'd tear me apart.
"What are you talking about, you son-of-a-bitch?" You'd just
rip me to shreds, showing me out to be a liar, a fabricator and
a perjurer.
When I started this, guards were peaking around the corner
and stalking, simply for my coming into court to speak. No
alarm bells went off. When I tell people that, it's like ringing
a bell in a vacuum. You're ringing it, or you're yelling
and making sounds, but people do not react. That thing that
is going on with the farmers in Klamath Falls and
elsewhere, tragic as it is to them, is also developing an army of
people that will fight. If you will not fight, if you won't
stand up to them and risk going to jail, and go to jail, you
will just be like a bunch of barnyard chickens. What do the
chickens do when the wolves come into the chicken yard?
They all scatter. However, they could all turn and go after
that wolf, no matter if they're a chicken or not. They've got a
beak. They can peck. My petite, 90-year-old mother does that.
When she turns on them, it completely undoes them. They have no
way of dealing with that. But you have to have that fighting
instinct.
THE END
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