Those were the words of Atlanta Attorney, Kenneth Schatten in the presence of Private Investigator, Billy Carter. Schatten had bragged about Carter's experience, that he was featured in the book, "Praying for Sheetrock." Yet later I was advised not to engage the help of police and to keep the matter private. In fact, Schatten wrote, Carter had already collected information regarding the Alabama "suicide," but it would take more money in the midst of a very nasty divorce, to unlock the details.So in Atlanta, when an attorney suspects murder, in the midst of an ongoing divorce negotiation, is he supposed to summons police? Schatten's words were nearly believable, but I suspected instead, my estranged husband and his mistress had opted to make the boy disappear. Little Gerry had knowledge of his father's extramarital affair, had confided the information to me, and he was aware his father had given false information to Cobb County police.
My estranged husband, Gerard J. Sniffen, Jr. was a powerful Norfolk Southern railroad executive at that time, in charge of the railroad's communications and signals systems. He was aware his sons had recently been victimized by a paroled felon (Frederick Grant) involved with cocaine, but at my suggestion he refused to contact Cobb County police saying instead, "I took care of Fred myself."
There were several Georgia attorneys involved during the death and disappearance. When it happened initially, George C. Childs, and Jim Knight of Marietta were my attorneys, and swiftly dropped the case following my son's death. Schatten took over when Childs & Knight opted out, and the opposing attorney representing the boy's father was Atlanta attorney, Michael Broadbear.
So where does "civil" law stop and "criminal" law begin? And are attorneys ever found guilty of crimes or fraud? I sent a copy of the Schatten letter suggesting I should avoid police to the GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation.) Their response:
"Oh, that's a lawyer's tactic."
And if this is how the law operates, then nobody is safe, and not an attorney alive can be trusted.
2 comments:
Dear Michelle.
The key to any criminality involving a major railroad, is to understand that it isn't simply enough to make hiding places on certain boxcars or tanker wagons and put contraband in them.
There has to be a way of tracking and finding those wagons and boxcars, without there being any abnormal mark on them whatsoever, and there probably has to be a way of changing their destination: getting them swapped out of one train and into another.
The same applies to cargoes which are not illegal in nature, but only in destination: going to someone other than who paid for them!
But this is what the coding and routing system used by the railroad's own staff does anyway, and that's impenetrable to outsiders for a number of reasons, one of which is to make life harder for any American version of Ronnie Biggs wanting to rob a train.
If the FBI, DEA and US Customs service want to address criminality using railroad rolling stock, then they have to penetrate and fully understand the coding and routing systems used by railroad managers, such as your ex-husband.
The FBI does have a cryptology department, but they might require help from the NSA -and a law-enforcement body that knows specifically about railroads and railroad freight-routing methodology.
In the UK, this would be the British Transport Police, but I don't think there's a direct American equivalent, at least not on the national scale, as crime across state lines is almost entirely dealt with by the FBI.
Asking BTP to help might dent the FBI's pride, but could possibly produce results. A fair amount of the contraband smuggled into the USA on railroad wagons from Mexico, gets onto containers heading across the Atlantic to the UK, so the benefits of such cooperation could be mutual.
But the FBI and DEA are never going to find what they are looking for by wandering around endless, and endlessly moving, railroad marshalling yards looking at thousands of identical wagons. But if they could look at the coding and routing system with sufficient knowledge and understanding as well as legal access, they might find suspect wagons leaping off the computer screen at them.
And this would be the case long after an illegal cargo had been sent and delivered, so that gangs could be rounded up for things they have done going back a couple of decades. Thing is, although there are central computers, the information on them has been distributed all over the system at some point, and a lot of it has been printed out onto waybills and the like.
It would be nearly impossible for the Mob to call this information back: they must be relying on its meaning remaining opaque to the authorities.
Were the NSA to fail, it's surely worth pointing out that GCHQ has better minds available, even if their computers may be smaller. (Although, that is an assumption that cannot be verified.)
If, amongst it all, there are utterly unbreakable computer or transmitted data files that consistently break down into groups of three files of same length transmitted back and forth and back again within a short time: the odds are that the NSA absolutely cannot break them. However, there IS a way...
Thank you for your comments.
The railroads here have their own private police, and in Atlanta they are members of a band they call "The Lawmen." So when they're not police they entertain at railroad parties, and social gatherings.
I don't know whether the FBI, state or local police have any jurisdiction in railroads or railroad freight. Surely somehow the government has oversight, particularly in shipping hazardous materials.
Railroads are very powerful, extremely conservative and highly valued and honored among vendors and contractors. To get business with a railroad is as good or better than a government contract.
Railroads are different than other corporations because they have their own retirement system, that operates outside social security. It could be because the railroads are the oldest of established American corporations.
Late 1990's, a woman named Darlene Fitzgerald unraveled a US Customs smuggling ring, which was shipping drugs via railroad tanker cars in San Diego. For that she had to live in terror and like other American whistle-blowers, suffered the circumstances of being honest.
My ex-husband was in charge of communications and signals which fell within the Department of Engineering. At that time, Phillip Ogden was his boss, V.P of Engineering, and I believe he determined who my husband should do business with.
It was odd to find myself in Richmond Kentucky, and an Okonite Plant while fleeing the horrifying railroad divorce situation in Georgia. Okonite was one of my husband's favorite vendors, and provided trips to Nashville, New Orleans, gambling and country music. Later I rented a farm, and coincidentally, have found Phillip Ogden is on the Board of Directors of a company, (R.J. Corman) in Jessamine County, not a block away from the farm!
It was almost strange the railroad seemed to be everywhere while I was trying to survive, and wait for that nasty Georgia railroad divorce to be finished.
I was not able to attend my son's funeral in Georgia but understood about 200 people were there - mostly railroad men wearing suits, according to a relative. They even had my picture displayed at his funeral while I was wrestling with the jailings and police harassment that were arranged to keep me away.
I couldn't believe they did that, particularly without my permission.
It's pretty incredible what happens in this country. Soon there will probably be a movie about it so people will believe it's all "fiction."
I have, many times, considered writing a post about the life of a corporate wife, but it's not time.
Again thanks for your comments and insight!
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