With all the horrors about Georgia's court system and stories of mothers fleeing the state, of families and children ripped apart and destroyed by the system, it's time for someone to demand accountability of those in power, and it's good to see the FBI has finally taken complaints seriously. They've formed a special team dedicated to corruption, and the people of Georgia would have fared better if the feds had taken the problem seriously and acted on it ten years ago. Many of those same people are in power and seem to stay in power, like in every other state.
My personal case is special because I lost a child in the midst of a horrifying Georgia divorce from a Norfolk Southern Railroad executive. My son disappeared in the midst of my false arrests and accusations brought about by the divorce. I was notified he turned up dead in Alabama but because of the Georgia arrests couldn't attend his funeral or burial or identify his body, so...
In Georgia, what happens when a person disappears and the body, when identified and autopsied in another state doesn't match the missing person? That's what happened in my case.
It's another loophole in the law, where the federal system isn't structured to investigate certain crimes that span several states. And it's open game for criminals who know exactly how to play their cards. Michael Jordan's father's body was dropped in South Carolina although he'd been murdered in N.C. Amy Frink's body was said to have been taken to S.C. and dropped, although she'd been murdered in N.C. Autopsies and investigations occurring in one state are often handled differently than in others, and when there are trials, and investigations, what happens? It's one of those slippery spots in the law that the federal system should some day address seriously, to close gaps that criminals can use to escape justice.
August brought news that the FBI is finally serious about investigating corruption in the state of Georgia. It was last year that Cobb County's Judge Nix resigned and Federal Judge Jack Camp did the same. Nix was playing Santa as the local lady lawyers sat on his lap at the annual Christmas parties. Any defendant in Nix's Cobb Court would only dream of such an opportunity. And among other things, Federal Judge Camp had problems with drugs and prostitutes.
I was told by my Atlanta attorney, Kenneth Schatten, that he, Judge Adele Grubbs, and Michael Broadbear, the opposing attorney in my divorce case, were laughing and joking about me at one of those Christmas parties. I had been forced to flee the state because of all the police harassment and false arrests to coerce me to sign the divorce papers. I had lived in and out of motels and been homeless and terrified for months. They thought this was funny?
It appears the upper crust in Georgia have a social club exclusive to those who are "in," and for those who aren't it can be a true and ongoing horror story. Even the Cobb County Commissioners were partying at the Norfolk Southern Railroad Christmas Party the Christmas before my horrors started and my son disappeared.
My personal experience was with Cobb County's divorce court and the legal tactics used in the Georgia "justice" system. I found myself thrown in jails, falsely accused, ridiculed, and even sent in shackles to a state hospital in the midst of my son's disappearance and reported death. One judge in Peach County, Laurens Lee, said if I would just sign my divorce papers my problems would disappear.
That's the way the system works in Georgia. It seems to be an "out for blood" win/lose system there, and you have the money to play. Some of the law firms are referred to as divorce mills.
My attorney, Kenneth Schatten said, "You'll never get the truth about what happened to your son because there's too much money against you." What that means, is that money buys justice, Or money conceals the truth, or both? It could also mean a lot of people got paid off - including him.
Schatten's said my son is alive and basically held hostage somewhere, dared to make contact with his mother or sister or brother, with the advice, "take your blog down off the internet, you're making "them" angry," as though there's some sort of dark criminal organization involved. He said we would be killed if my son should try and contact us.
I told him I would not take my blog down–– and in many instances guarantees by the First Amendment are the only avenues for justice or truth many of us have left. I told him to tell his contacts to go ahead and kill us all if that's what they plan, because I won't be intimidated anymore. I decided to stop running from them when I got to Kentucky.
It's important that the "legal tactics' as the GBI described these things are known. There are maneuvers used in Georgia in "civil" actions to destroy lives and coerce and intimidate, so this post is dedicated to some of those tactics and how the "GAME" of coercive justice is played in Georgia. If a person is ever thrown under a legal system, there will be little chance of recovery.
Out of hundreds of documents, these are just a few. Check back as I'll be adding more as time allows.
When I was continuously being harassed by police, arrested, and falsely accused I wrote to Senator Paul Coverdell thinking he might initiate an investigation into corruption within Cobb, Peach, and Houston counties. About a year later, Senator Coverdell passed away.
So then, Senator Coverdell contacted the head of the County Commission, Bill Byrne....
And then Dorothy Bishop got wind of the problem, and by that time surely I was the laughing stock of all of Cobb County's governmental offices, which surely prompted the jokes at the annual Christmas party.
So, I got a driver's license and found they'd made me an organ donor. So I went over to the DMV to make a correction and the lady said I'd have to pay $25.00 to get "organ donor" removed from my license. I began to get scared because I'd already been jailed and incarcerated under false charges and accusations, so why were they making me an organ donor?
In writing to the Governor the issue was addressed and they did investigate and acknowledged an "overcharge" which wasn't an overcharge, it was actually an illegal charge.
The records held by Mayes Ward have the body shipment details which covered shipment to Virginia and Georgia; and also the financial details as this funeral home handled arrangements with entities in two other states, but "Georgia Law" protects this information from being released to the mother.
As soon as I moved from Cobb County to a temporary residence in the Peach/Houston County area, a state trooper gave me a no-seat-belt ticket. It was illegal because I was not charged with any other violation; but there was nothing I could do but pay it. And after that all of the police harassment, false arrests, shackles, handcuffs and Georgia "legal" tactics began.
This is the warrant for harassing phone calls. Mr. Schatten said, "I heard the tapes. You didn't harass anybody." But what I believe caused the dismissal of all charges was my refusal to plead guilty and to appear only before a judge. I requested a jury trial, and knew I'd win if the jury was honest. The case against me after many months, plenty of worry, and lots of money - was dismissed.
This is the warrant where they came to the house and took me to the Emergency Room, then shackled me and handcuffed me and took me to Central State Hospital. There, the records (that I retrieved later) said, "Husband unknown, unable to pay." I gave them his office and home address and phone numbers, telling them he was a railroad executive and had full coverage health insurance on me. The bill was about $8000.00 as they'd refused to release me after 72 hours but retained me nearly 7 days. I didn't think I would be released at all, but was lucky to have thought to call the Mental Health Advocacy office. What was luckier was that I had taken the money with me, to be able to afford the call!! Note the date "error" in the filing.
Because of all of the arrests and incarcerations, costs of bail for all the arrests, the hospital incarceration, attorneys, travel, etc., I couldn't afford an attorney for the "criminal" charges, and Mr. Schatten had said he couldn't handle those because he wasn't "that kind" of attorney. So I applied for an indigent attorney. The person in the Macon office listed my jewelry at $10,000.00 which was absolutely untrue, but he must have also been in the appraisal business. Note he also could not spell my name properly––which is the way records get lost in these and so many other situations. They had planned this very well, knowing to continue badgering me with arrests and harassment would render me unable emotionally or financially to deal with whatever they might have planned next. And I began to live that way, in trying to anticipate exactly what their next strategy would be to further destroy my life and happiness.
Provocation to anger was one of their tools, and it was the way they set the stages for the traps. My husband had the perfect right to pack my belongings he'd had complete control of from the time he had me ordered out of the house. When I finally got my belongings, many were missing, some had been stomped and destroyed even before they were packed into boxes. A set of Franklin half dollars was missing the 1949S. A set of lamps was broken, a set of sheets missing a bottom. He knew well how to hit below the belt and was well schooled in exactly what he and his mistress had planned for me. Evil isn't a proper word to describe what these people did but, scheming evil is a better description.
Even after the divorce, my medical records found their way back to his mistresse's house where he'd lived even before our divorce was final, and where he'd lived when he abandoned our daughter alone in an empty house to finish high school. My medical funds also went to his mistresse's address. It was incredible what this man was capable of doing that was "LEGAL" within the courts of Georgia, which was too menial for my divorce attorney to address.
Schatten stood back and let it all happen. Marietta attorneys, George Childs and Jim Knight had jumped ship just after my son's body had [supposedly] been buried.
It's a frightening place to live and work, knowing the Atlanta legal community, as has been written of in the Sara Tokars case, is "notoriously gossipy." More than one person has said, if you need an attorney in Georgia find one outside the state with the credentials and permits to practice there. Otherwise you'll be railroaded by the good 'ol boy system that operates there. Doesn't every honest Georgian and American hope these things aren't true?
This is the Peach County bond paper resulting from the Houston County landlord, Nell Stumpff's warrant against me. I hired Stan Martin, a local attorney, to tell me what I should do. He charged me $500 and said, "If you just keep quiet about it all of your problems will disappear." It was strange, because I told Martin I wanted my day in court against Nell. She was lying and had concocted the charges. Besides that she'd also lied to my family. But, the charges .... simply disappeared.
(It was weird when I got to Kentucky and found out that, like Nell's son, in Kentucky the drug dealers also set up drug operations on county lines. Walk across Hwy 41 from Nell's apartment and you would be stepping from Peach to Houston County, and be out of jurisdiction from Peach police. I was told Nell's apartment only had one water line that served at least three structures, which was illegal. Never was able to find out whether it was true.)
Terrified of what they might have planned for me next, I visited the Warner Robins police department and spoke with an officer there. Officer Whitten of the Warner Robins police department seemed to understand what I was experiencing better than I could put into words, and wrote it in a police report:
In contacting all of these entities that had detrimental records against me, that I'd tried to correct, this is one of the responses.
I left the state of Georgia anticipating more arrests and false accusations. But when the divorce was final, I came back thinking I'd build a home near my daughter. But as soon as I arrived, I'd been followed, and the Paulding County Animal Shelter showed up and said, "We got a call about your animals but they look just fine." I had my show dogs with me and the shelter inspected them. But two days later they came back when I was gone and confiscated them. I got my show dogs back and left the state.
Then later I got a threatening letter from the county law firm which happened to be former house speaker Glenn Richardson's law firm, that I had abused the animals. It was obvious I was not welcome in Georgia, and I wish Norfolk Southern Railroad had never transferred my family there.
Familiar with the "MERRY GO ROUND" Georgia calls "justice," this is another reject letter from state/local government: a letter from Cobb County's D.A. Pat Head. Corruption in this case has been localized to specific counties, yet the FBI directs you right back to internal affairs of the local governments who were part of the design, or they direct you to get another expensive lawyer that most victims can't afford, and who might be paid off. So it's just another merry-go-round, and corruption continues. The federal government has no system to stop it as the FBI is limited in what it investigates.
The GBI couldn't understand and couldn't have known at that time, that the Alabama autopsy report didn't match my son's body. All that happened to my family and children was planned and arranged in Georgia. And since my son had already had dealings in Roswell and his father had hired an expensive attorney there, there's no reason for me to believe the fingerprint story is legitimate. After all, they'd thrown me in jails and used Georgia police against me in other counties, all based on lies, and my husband had even told lies to my friends and family. He had bragged about paying off a judge in college, so with his money and power, there was no reason for me to believe anything he said or did after seeing what he was capable of doing to the mother of his children.
Contrary to the autopsy report below, my son had no scars whatsoever on his legs.
Just last summer Attorney Kenneth Schatten said, "They've got your son somewhere and they've told him if he tries to contact you or his brother or sister, they're going to kill you all." It was odd that Mr. Schatten would change the story from 1999 to this. In 1999 he'd said he believed my husband murdered our son. What the Georgia judges and courts didn't know is that my son knew two things: he knew his father had a mistress, and he knew his father had lied to the police. So with that knowledge, the boy had to disappear, one way or another, else his father would lose his case.
I had contacted the FBI in 2001, with a stack of documents to prove all the harassment and horrors I'd endured in Georgia. An agent there, Brian Blanchard in Louisville Kentucky where I had relocated said, "The railroad has lawyers you can't beat." My initial attorney, George Childs of Marietta, had said the opposing attorney in the divorce, Michael Broadbear, was a railroad accident attorney. Gordon Bennett, a criminal I met later said his brother was a railroad Vice President. My husband's fraternity brother was Vice President of Coal Sales for Norfolk Southern, and my husband was Assistant Vice President in charge of Communications and Signals.
Whomever was behind all of this, has had the power to keep it concealed, keep my son hidden and afraid, and to have me watched and monitored, and they've gotten away with it.
My problems didn't end in Georgia but continued in coal country, Kentucky where I'd fled to wait out the divorce. In Kentucky I found my Georgia problems had followed me. There, I had animals killed, was stalked, had my phone and billing tampered with more than once. I was double billed for state income tax, had tire slashed, home sabotage problems, and stalked and arrested and harassed by police there. My cobra railroad medical insurance was worthless because the diagnoses were in error or the doctors offices were incompetent in handling paper work. I was afraid to use medical insurance it at all because I didn't want "them" knowing my personal business.
Some people will say, "it's the CIA," and others will say it's the course of a person's every day life to have so many encounters with the law in a divorce. How many people could say that in a 40 day period they'd been falsely accused in two instances, arrested in three different county jails, forced by law into a state hospital, handcuffed, shackled, intimidated, and in the same 40 day period her son disappeared, died in one state, was memorialized in one state, and then buried in another?
Before my Georgia divorce I had one speeding ticket in Virginia, driving 10 miles over the speed limit because my 5-year-old was late for the dentist. In Georgia, within a short period of forty days my life was totally destroyed by their legal "justice" system and I'd lost a child.
One of the attending judges in one of the arrests, Laurens Lee of Peach County, Georgia said, "If you just sign your divorce papers all of your problems will disappear." I remember asking the judge, "If I don't sign them, do you think they'll kill my other children?"
What they were able to arrange in Georgia and Kentucky is absolutely beyond belief. I will never recover from the shock of knowing these things happen in the USA.
There are many lessons to this story but one lesson is while executives might easily divorce their wives, they don't so easily divorce their stock options. It isn't easy to get a divorce from another person, but divorcing a corporation is yet another story. These guys have every available means to "win" at their fingertips.
My ex-husband, as assistant vice president, had a special, private phone line designated just for me in fact, with the number's last four digits of my birthday. The interesting part is the extra phone expense couldn't be justified as we seldom spoke more than 5 minutes on any given day, via telephone or otherwise. He seldom spoke of work, but he did mention a few things, about the secret code language of the communications workers, and that he couldn't understand "how [CEO David] Goode was getting away with misrepresenting the financial status of the company." It was during the Conrail merger, when CSX was posed to take Conrail and NS interceded in 1996.
The Communications and Signals office was plush, in fact, the richest in the old Southern RR building in downtown Atlanta, I was told. Somehow, something just wasn't right about it all--the casino trips, overseas trips, fishing trips, and shows provided by vendors; the $60,000 yearly bonus for keeping the budget; the golden parachute even if one committed a crime; and the secrets. The upper organization was so serious and conservative it was frightening and stressful to be a part of. And what could warrant tight-lips and secret code languages as the communications workers had, when merely moving freight?
As Attorney Mr. Schatten had said, "There's too much money against you to get the truth about your son," he never said whose money it was. FBI Agent Brian Blanchard of Louisville had mentioned the railroad had lawyers I couldn't win against, but I couldn't believe the railroad as an entity would have an interest in destroying my life or the lives of my children. It had to be my ex, and revenge and his connections to a powerful underworld that could bring it about. One way or another I would be silenced. And if it hadn't been for the internet, I would have been.
FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS OF AMERICA
Will it always be a mystery as to how and why Viet Nam occurred? It seemed the poor boys were sent to war, to the front line combat and to endure incredible losses and tragedies. All the while the "select" in the selective service system seemed to live a padded existence, with open opportunities for and after college and futures painted for success. Who made those decisions and did the conscientious ones, the young Americans with morals and integrity get spent at the unwinnable foreign war while less desirable or devious ones stayed behind-- schooled to run the country and shape its laws and financial system?
My ex-husband used to brag at the Virginia Tech fraternity brother gatherings about the time he paid off the Martinsville, Virginia judge while in college facing a DUI record. It was easy, he said. All you have to do is get a good, strong hometown lawyer. That was the key to it: to be sure the lawyer was "old blood," from local family heritage, and well-heeled in the town. Because that is the lawyer that could get things done.
In Martinsville, with the DUI charge, the lawyer had lead him over to the judge's office, then the threesome walked to the bank. There, the judge nodded to the teller his approval of the out-of-town check, and the teller handed the $500 cash back. Back at the judge's office, the judge took the cash, and then tore up the entire file in my ex-husband's presence. Everybody was happy.
While boys were being killed overseas, these guys were having a blast partying in college and formed life-long friendships, and some would become powerful business relationships. They'd laugh over drinks years later about how they stole and butchered a cow in the fraternity house basement so they could save money on food. And they were particularly happy that the N&W railroad CEO, Bob Claytor liked Virginia Tech graduates for the railroad - particularly at merger time.
For what Mr. Schatten said about there being too much money against me, that would block the truth regarding my son, the money could have come from many directions. The questions are whether and how much money changed hands to have all the incarcerations and intimidations arranged to keep me at a disadvantage while they arranged his disappearance.
I remember asking my former Georgia landlord, Nell Stumpff, "How does somebody go about paying off somebody? What's the approach tactic?" And she said, "Well, you go in to your lawyer and say, 'What can we do about this problem?'"
Besides being musicians, "The Lawmen," Norfolk Southern's Atlanta railroad police play music and fix speeding tickets, too. It was a 20-hour drive each weekend my son wanted to come home from Camden Military Academy. On Friday's I'd leave driving 5 hours from Cobb County to pick him up in Camden, S.C., and 5 more to bring him home. And on Sunday I'd drive the long 10 hours to get him back to school. After we had been transferred to Georgia, the drive was considerably greater than it had been when we'd lived in Charlotte. He spent the last three years of high school at Camden. On one trip, the trip back, I was driving a short-cut home on Burnt Hickory Road having failed to make the bathroom pit-stop I should have made. In a rush it was dark and a daughter at home alone, and I was speeding 10 miles more than the speed limit which was 35 mph. I honestly believed the speed limit was actually 45. There was a 35 mph speed trap there, I discovered later after driving back to the area to discover the sign, so to better understand the speeding ticket.
The miraculous part of it is that the charges and ticket simply disappeared, just like Nell Stumpff's felony charges against me had disappeared. My husband, who was Assistant Vice President of Communications and Signals for Norfolk Southern Railroad, explained that the railroad's police had "taken care" of the ticket. I remember thinking everyone should be lucky enough to be married to a railroad executive. And later, I wondered how other former railroad spouses had fared in their divorces and whether their health was holding up and their children still alive.
Today I went to Cobb County court house to get some records, and stopped to look up to see whether there was a trace of that speeding ticket. There wasn't even a trace. I had flashbacks when I got to the Marietta Square, wondering whether the driver's window of my car would be doused with hot, sugared coffee as I drove, as it had been in 1999 when I was summonsed to the court. And I wondered whether a guy in dark glasses driving a Lincoln would try and clip me and intimidate me as I turned at the stoplight.
Nothing bad happened. In fact, I couldn't have been greeted by more accommodating, efficient people.
I've always wondered who paid the $8000.00 Central State Hospital bill when they had me court ordered there for 72 hours observation, and detained me for nearly a week through New Years 1999 just after my son's Cobb County funeral service. I was released from Central State Hospital after contacting the Mental Health Advocacy office and explaining my problems to them, and after my release, I went back to the hospital and requested copies of all the records. It was strange they had written, "spouse unknown" on the records, that I had no medical insurance of record, and later slapped me with an $8,000 bill. I remember telling them I was very much married to a Norfolk Southern Railroad executive, gave them his name, his office and home addresses and phone numbers, and assured them that he had full coverage medical insurance on me, and insurance should take care of the tab. Funny I never heard another word about the "tab."
(In Georgia "incurable mental illness" means an instant and easy divorce, and apparently, at least in my case, the diagnosis can be arranged.)
They tried to discourage me from getting the hospital records although I'd made a long trip, I remember saying to the clerks, "If it takes a 2 hours, two days, two weeks, or two years, I'm going to get a motel room and wait for those records." I had the records in about 2 hours. In Peach County with Nell Stumpff's arrest, the jailer had tried to withhold records as well, like the Baldwin County, Alabama Sheriff's department had done with my son's police records.
Later, in Kentucky all kinds of medical billing and diagnostic problems popped up with my NS insurance. So leaving Georgia didn't end my problems by any means.
After the visit to Cobb County's court today, the thing to figure out now is how the State Court could have handled a Superior Court issue with the dismissed harassing phone call charges. Tune in for the next chapter.
