Against All Enemies Foreign and Domestic
Excessive Bail
When I was first arrested on March 24, 2000 I was charged with 22 different felony counts. My bail was set at $550,000 dollars. This was a Friday night. When I was finally taken to court it was the following Wednesday and the counts were down to 10 yet my bail was maintained at $550,000. There was no way on earth for me to post a $550,000 bond or even the $55,000 10% required by any bail bondsman in California, of which is lost for ever as the cost of the bail company posting the bond.
In the links below I hope to show you how San Diego used excessive bail as an additional means to break down my family and myself into a false confession. Being held in a jail cell 2000 miles from my family with some 60 serious sex offenders is not a picnic. Jail, contrary to popular believe is not a hotel. You are given two sheets, one blanket and a 1/2" foam mattress to lay on a cold steel bunk. There is no way to lay with out pain to your body for more than 30 minutes. The food you are given most dogs would not eat unless starving to death. The guards are the same as street gangs. You are given one set of clothes to wear through the week with no others to change into. They don't try to size you so one week you may get clothes that are 3 sizes to small or 3 sizes to big and by the time you get your next set a week later of course they stink to high heaven. The guards continue to go through every thing you may have taking what ever they want. You are not allowed anything from the outside except eye glasses if you were wearing them at the time of your arrest. You can buy some snack items if you have money on your account and a bible as well as legal materials provided by your attorney. They open and read all your mail incoming and outgoing. They tape every single conversation you have even with those your attorney. They walk through the cell blocks at night banging on doors to ensure that you don't sleep, they get on the loud speakers through out the jail yelling for you to wake up and saying this is jail you don't have a right to sleep. Now you may argue this is fair treatment for a convicted felon but county jails are also used to house men convicted of no crime while they wait a hearing or trial. Near 50% have not yet been convicted of any crime they have been charged with while they wait. The ones that have been convicted are only in a county jail because they have been convicted of a minor crime not worth a state or federal prison sentence.
Jail was used by the DA in San Diego to prevent me from forming any kind of defense and to break me mentally to their will. My bail was reduced after 30 days to $250,000. Again no way on earth to post bail for my income and savings. My lawyer tried to explain that it was a good bail because I could use my home to post the down payment. However, once again in California for the average person this prevents the accused from posting the bond. You see it works this way, in order for California to accept your home as collateral for you bond if you are the sole owner you must have 50% of bond value in equity in your home. If you are a joint owner then both parties also must have 50% of the value in equity meaning that for me my home was worth $200,000 but to use my home to post bail between my x wife and I we needed to have $200,000 in equity in order to use the home. I argued with my lawyer that it was simply legal double talk and the cost of going to court to reduce the bail from $550,000 to $250,000 was just another useless drain of my money. At every step my lawyer never missed a trick to find some one to drain my money and further my inability to afford a defense.
In my case in particular as you may imagine from the story in the book my background was spotless. The judge, DA, and my own attorney had access to my records that included the most extensive background checks done in the United States to use to show I was not a flight risk or did I have any kind of criminal record what so ever. These investigations were conducted by over 30 federal officers from the FBI, the United States Secret Service, and the Military Intelligence services in order for me to have access to the most sensitive information in the Untied States and to have free access to the Presidents and their families.
In addition to the brief outline I have told you on the links page about using the media to against me my very own lawyer at the time talked my wife at the time into not coming down to help me or be with me or my children. He even convinced me that I did not want to further expose them to harassment from the media or the San Diego police by being seen at my side. The DA's opening statement and the excuse for maintaining the excessive bail was that I had no family support and no family in San Diego or ties to the area at all. That was his opening statement and at the time was well known to them to be false. I have over 200 family members in San Diego and I have been going to visit them and staying in San Diego off and on since 1959. I had an aunt and a uncle that came to visit me nearly twice a week as well as my brother and sister in law. When it came time for court appearances my lawyer would not allow them in the court telling me and them that it would expose them to harassment by the press and the police both. Of course now with the benefit of nearly 5 years of hind sight and partial freedom I can see now it was all done to support the DA's case that I had no ties in San Diego or support what so ever. My lawyer even refused my requests to get a decent hair cut, shave or to dress in a suit and tie for my court appearances while being held on bail. That way I could look the part of a sexual predator wearing dirty prison clothes, long un kept hair and a beard. The TV news crews loved to tape me for the news casts looking like a criminal shackled by my hands and feet.
Now with out further I am going to show you with the following links stories where men and women were accused and in some cases even caught in the act of having sex with real children where the bail was much lower than mine. Some even include repeat offenders. The point is to show that I was held on excessive bail and the reasons for that are many but simply are not supported by legal precedence and are forbidden the 8th amendment to the US Constitution.
There are thousands of more cases that can be found where men and women both have been caught in the very act of having sex with children where they were freed on bail waiting trials on 1/10th the bail that was set against me. Again the point of the excessive bail in my case was to destroy my will to fight. Every counselor that I have had to relate my story too has told me the purpose for the treatment I have received from the courts and the police has simply been to keep me from fighting back for justice and to prevent civil and criminal charges being filed against them. Any one that spend more than a single hour looking into my case would also see how they set out to destroy my family as well and every source of emotional support that a man could have. Neither a North Korean or North Viet Nam POW camp could do to a man what was done to me. Keep in mind they could not gain actual access to a POW's wife and children.