I tried to copy and paste the relevant information into this one post but sadly was unable to do so. I will have to spread it over several posts. Here is part one which covers 'my release papers' to 'another police escorted visit and a rental-license inspection'.
Joe takes me in
Being rather confused at this hour, I could not follow the directions to the Goldberg bail/bond office. I also did not have my glasses. Therefore, I misread one of the street signs and wound up a few blocks east of where I should have gone. But then I found my way back and located the Goldberg office. The door was locked.
I could see a man sitting behind a desk. I buzzed and he opened the door. I was asked to complete and sign a form, agreeing to pay Goldberg back the $2,400 if I failed to make my court appearance on Wednesday. Then I was allowed to call Joe Nelson on the phone. Joe said he was waiting for me in a black van parked a block away on 4th street.
Joe had been waiting in the van for two hours. Since I was forbidden to sleep in my own home, he let me spend the night in his home in Brooklyn Park, about thirty minutes drive north of downtown Minneapolis. I slept on a sofa in the living room of his house. Joe had borrowed money from a half-sister in Missouri to raise my bail.
To be honest, I had enough money in my wallet to bail myself out of jail. On Friday evening, I had actually been looking forward to a three-day stay in the detention facility. However, Joe’s kindness and concern were remarkable. I could hardly complain.
Joe had purchased a newspaper called “BUSTED” from a gas station for a dollar. For a time it seemed that the personal recognition that had eluded me in other areas of my life might be found there among the mug shots of persons arrested not only for domestic assault but also drug possession, robbery, DWI, probation violation, forgery, and disorderly conduct during the past week. No such luck. My offense was of little interest to this publication.
a police-escorted visit
Taking advantage of the police-escort exception to the no-contact order, Joe and I visited my home west of downtown Minneapolis on the following day to retrieve some of my belongings. Besides clothes, I wanted my iMAC computer along with keyboard and mouse. I decided to leave the printer behind at that point. I made a list of other items I wanted to retrieve.
We had to wait over an hour for our police escort to arrive at the house. The male officer told us that if my wife disputed the removal of any item, it would have to be left in the house. Fortunately, there was no such dispute. My wife seemed somber and subdued. She had packed some clothing for me in a duffel bag. I explained that the no-contact order would make it impossible for us to communicate for at least the next several days. I told her about the hearing on February 23rd.
As I was carrying the computer down the steps, there was a knock on the front door. It was our daughter who lives in northern Virginia. She had taken the early morning flight from Dulles airport to Minneapolis intending to bail me out of jail. She had also brought money for her mother. Do Do was in the next room with my wife. When I opened the door, the dog ran out to greet me with joyous squeals.
This time, the Minneapolis police were cordial and helpful. I now had my computer without a printer or internet connection. I had a few more clothes. Joe Nelson and I spent much of the weekend together. I slept first on a couch and then in a bed in his house. We saw a herd of deer while looking out the back window.
I should not say this but I violated the judge’s no-contact order by meeting privately with Violet at a coffee shop near our house before she returned to Virginia. I can’t say that this meeting helped to resolve any issues.
the pretrial hearing
I was ordered to attend a pretrial hearing on February 23, 2011, where I supposed I would be allowed to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges. The hearing was held in room 143 of the same facility from which I had been released from detention four days earlier. Joe loaned me his car. I drove from Brooklyn Park to Minneapolis and parked on LaSalle Street on the south edge of downtown. It was a twelve-block walk to the Public Safety Facility.
I checked in with a clerk in the courtroom who asked if I wanted to apply for representation by the Public Defender. If so, I should go to room 133. There I filled out a form concerning my personal finances. The fact that I received $24,000 per year from Social Security and a pension disqualified me from the this program. What was the guideline, I asked? The woman would not tell me because she said I might tell others who would try to game the system. All she would say was that I was well above the eligibility limit.
Judge Mark S. Wernick was already hearing cases when I returned to the court room. The city prosecutor was a man named Stephen Norton. The court room was crowded that day. Joe arrived around 10 a.m. and sat next to me. For the next three hours, we listened and watched as a stream of defendants stood before the judge with their attorneys. Many pled guilty to a lesser charge.
I learned something about the law listening to attorneys explaining the consequences of a guilty plea. I learned, for instance, that evidence of physical injury is not necessary to convict in domestic-abuse cases. A person can be found guilty for assaulting a women, or threatening to assault her, if the intent is to make her afraid. Domestic abuse was “conduct likely to cause anger or fear” in another person in one’s own household.
For instance, there was a slight young man named Ortiz who had told his wife that she could not go to a party. They had had a heated argument about this. The incident was interpreted as an attempt to intimidate or constrain the woman by force. The wife had said that a physical assault took place during the argument. Mr. Ortiz denied this. He was willing, however, to plead guilty to disorderly conduct, a lesser charge which would be less likely to affect his immigration status.
The down side of guilty pleas was that the offenses were “enhanceable”. In other words, if a particular offense was repeated, the punishment would be more severe. Misdemeanors would become felonies if the same conduct happened three times. I had been charged with a misdemeanor and was determined not to plead guilty to any charge.
There was also a young man named Zubay. The victim had said that she was willing to drop the charges. She wanted to remove the “no contact” order. Zubay claimed that he had not physically assaulted this person. However, the police report said that he had tried to smother her. Judge Wernick glanced at the police report and decided that the “no contact” order should continue.
The judge heard at least twenty cases that day. Having parked in a two-hour zone on the street, I was worried that Joe’s car might be ticketed. Joe was less concerned. We listened to a case where a man had violated an order for protection. If I heard the judge correctly, he was saying that violations of court orders such as those for no contact with the alleged victims would be charged as felonies regardless of the original offense.
Despite his courteous demeanor, Judge Wernick struck me as a martinet who was unconcerned with people’s real-life needs. Chief among his callous habits, I imagined, was the judge’s fondness for making defendants suddenly homeless in the dead of winter. I leaned over to Joe Nelson and whispered that I had a bad feeling about this person; he struck me as a “hanging judge”.
Joe and I waited as all the other defendants appeared before the bench. Most had sat in the court-room benches patiently awaiting their turn. On the other hand, several sets of defendants, in groups of four to six, sat behind glass in a side room wearing prison garb. They communicated with the judge through attorneys.
I was the very last defendant and the only one not to be represented by an attorney. It was around 12:30 p.m. - three hours after the proceeding had begun. I told the judge that I had applied for a Public Defender but had been denied. The judge strongly recommended that I hire a private attorney. He had a court clerk give me a sheet of paper which gave information about lawyer-referral agencies.
My main interest was in having the judge lift the no-contact order forbidding me to return to my home. I pointed out that I had lived in the same house for 19 years. I used this house as an office for a small rental-property business. I also explained that the city of Minneapolis had scheduled a rental-license inspection of this house on February 28th. I might well lose the house if I did not complete the inspection successfully. I said that there were two separate apartment units in this house. My wife could use one of the units and I the other. If the court feared for my wife’s safety, her unit could be locked.
The judge spent a minute looking through the police report. Then he announced that he would not lift the order. I was to have no contact with my wife and was not to visit my house at 1702 Glenwood Avenue until the case was resolved. When I said that the arresting officer had not asked me any questions at the scene but had led me in handcuffs to the squad car, the judge seemed irritated. He immediately signed the order. If I had any problems with the scheduled inspection, my attorney might contact the prosecutor to see what might be done.
That was it. The judge was in a hurry to leave the court chambers after a long day. At this point, Joe told him that I needed access to my home to to conduct my rental-property business. How was I to collect rents from tenants who lived in the restricted area? The judge did not answer that question. I then asked Judge Wernick if I had the right to represent myself pro se. Irritated, he said that I did: but I would be making a serious mistake if I did not engage the services of an attorney.
the complaint in the police report and my rebuttal
I had not been given a copy of the police report regarding my arrest until I stood at the dock next to the prosecutor. When the city prosecutor handed me the report, I was shocked to read the nature of the complaint.
The public statement was as follows: “Officers were dispatched to the above address on a call of a domestic assault. Upon arrival V1 stated that her husband of 11 years had punched her in the mouth, 3-4 times after an argument. I immediately observed blood coming from the victims mouth while talking with her. A1 was booked at HCJ. V1 was unable to write english so I asked the questions and completed the domestic supplement with the victims answers. Pictures were taken of the victims injuries. The camera and the domestic supplement were property inventoried. V1 declined medical.”
Much of the statement was repeated at the bottom of the page with the following additions: “SHE (THE VICTIM) WAS SOBBING AS I ASKED HER QUESTIONS. V1 ALSO STATED THT A1 HAD HELD HER WRISTS TOGETHER WITH ONE HAND WHILE HITTING HER TO THE POINT THAT SHE HAD TO BITE HIS HAND TO GET A1 TO RELEASE HER WRISTS.”
There was a supplement to the report which repeated some information in the above statements. Additional testimony was the following:
“ Upon arrival officer approach the door to apartment 3 and were met by V1 and I immediately observed blood coming from the victims mouth, swelling on her left check and she was sobbing and pointing back up the stairs at her husband, A1.”
" V1 was looking at the check book (that) had enraged A1 who then grabbed the victims wrists together with one hand and punched her in the mouth 3-4 times with the other clenched fist. V1 stated that she had to bite her husbands hand that was holding her wrists together to get him to release them.” My version of the facts is entirely different:
It had taken the Minneapolis police about fifteen minutes to come to the house after my wife made the 911 call. I was gone for five to ten minutes while driving a tenant to a nearby building. My wife and I spent five minutes sitting quietly together at a table in the hall. I did not then see any blood on her mouth. It’s possible, however, that she was bleeding because I did not look closely at her face.
I can say with greater assurance that my wife was not sobbing when she talked with me before the officers arrived. She was sobbing while talking with the 911 operator and, according to the police report, she was sobbing while talking with the arresting officer, Stephen Herron. In other words, the sobbing was not continuous but occurred only in circumstances when it could become part of the police record.
The police report describes my appearance as “mad/angry”. I remember myself as being calm - resigned to my fate. I said nothing as the handcuffs were put upon me and I was led to the squad car. There was no basis whatsoever for reporting that I appeared to be angry.
Also, I do not recall my wife being at the bottom of the stairs and pointing up to me. The officers could not have failed to remember that, when they arrived at the house and started up the stairs, our dog Do Do barked ferociously at them. I walked half way down the steps, picked Do Do up in my arms, brought him up the stairs, opened the door to apartment #4, and dropped the dog to the floor before closing the door and being promptly arrested.
The police report does not reveal that I was arrested before I had exchanged any words with the officers. It does not record that officer Rebecca Lane, the female, failed to interview me in the car about the incident. It does not record that I told both officer Lane and officer Herron that my wife had bitten me in the hand. I had asked them both to take a look at my injury while the bite marks were fresh. Both had neglected to do so.
Officer Herron did take a photograph of my arm at the county jail as evidence of the bite marks or lack of them. The public statement says only that “pictures were taken of the victims injuries.” I imagined that the jailhouse photo would be left out of the evidence presented in court.
The police report stated that my wife was injured in the “head/neck” although no injuries to the neck were reported. The report stated that the weapon used was “hand/feet/ bodily for”. “Bodily for” presumably means “bodily force” or general physical assault. I do know that no one was kicked in the check-grabbing incident. The allegation that feet were used to kick my wife is an example of how officer Herron embellished the facts.
The supplement refers to my grabbing the “house checkbook”. It was my personal checkbook, not one used jointly with my wife. My wife has never written checks from this account. She has her own bank accounts. We do have a joint credit card. The reference to a “house checkbook” is another example of how the officer embellished the facts to force certain conclusions.
Most importantly, the police report stated that I “grabbed the victims wrists together with one hand and punched her in the mouth 3-4 times with the other clenched fist. V1 stated that she had to bite her husbands hand that was holding her wrists together to get him to release them.”
I knew that this was physically impossible. First, I would have had to get my wife to place both wrists together, prayer- like, so that I could seize them with one of my hands. Then, I would have had to put my thumb and a finger around both wrists so that I could encircle and contain them. My thumb and middle finger make a circle of less than two inches in diameter. My wife’s wrists placed together tightly would form a circle of perhaps ten inches in diameter. The most I could have managed would be a crescent-shaped barrier around her wrists. Finally, even if I managed to get a vise-like grip on her wrists, my wife easily had enough leverage to break that grip by pushing outward.
I could hardly believe that my wife or the Minneapolis police would make such a claim. I could state unconditionally that I never hit my wife in the face or elsewhere. I never made a clenched fist. The argument was about the checkbook. I had no interest in restraining or injuring my wife. After I gained physical possession of the check book, I went promptly into the other room.
a significant punishment for someone not yet proven guilty
The judge’s order, based on the evidence included in the police report, stated:
“ You are ordered to have no contact directly, indirectly or through others, in person, by telephone, in writing, electronically or by any other means with the protected person(s) named above.”
“ You may not go to the following location(s): 1702 Glenwood Ave North Mpls, MN 55405 except with a police escort to recover prescription medications, personal clothing and toiletries.”
“ A violation of this order is a crime and may cause you to be arrested and subject to further criminal charges.”
The judge’s order remained in effect until March 18, 2011 - a full month from the time when the original incident took place - and possibly until the trial takes place many weeks or months after that. I suspected that the “no contact” order harmed my wife as well as me although, due to my court-ordered lack of communication with her, I could not be sure of her wishes. Such an arrangement, I thought, served only the interest of judges and police who did not wish to be embarrassed by victims who changed their mind.
I wrote a note to myself which read:
“In effect, I am being punished without the opportunity of defending myself against spurious charges. The judge took one look at the police report and decided my continued presence in our home posed a danger to my wife. He became irritated when I pointed out that the report was prepared without my having been asked a single question. He seemed less interested in making decisions based on cross-examined facts than protecting his dignity as a government official.
I am being punished by being banished from my home for more than a month. Had it not been for Joe, I would have been made homeless in the middle of winter. I am also being punished by loss of a car. I am being punished by severe restrictions on the ability to run my business, the loss of my land-line telephone, the inability personally to collect rents, and the need for timely compRosece with inspections orders on my home that will likely be issued on February 28th.
It is pure fiction to suggest that these are not punishments but simply judicial orders required to deal with a misdemeanor offense. These are, in fact, substantial punishments issued by a court which never gave this defendant a chance to defend himself against unfounded charges brought against him.
The feminist police state may have started out as a group of hateful, angry women who enlisted the power of the state to shift the balance of power to the woman in family disputes. It continued as a war on families in which men and women live cooperatively together. It has now become a system of state intrusion into people’s personal lives which serves the interest of neither women nor men."
Is Internal Affairs interested?
Joe Nelson suggested that I file a complaint against the officer who had arrested me without asking any questions. Perhaps city officials would be interested in knowing how certain police officers behave on domestic-abuse calls.
Following up on that suggestion, I visited the police chief’s office asking if I could see the photographs taken on February 18th. I was told to visit records. In records, I learned that different policies on releasing photographs exist for different types of cases. Domestic-abuse cases were handled by the City Attorney’s office. At the City Attorney’s office, I spoke by telephone with a woman in charge of such cases. She said that the photographs would be made available to my attorney at the time of the March 18th hearing.
I decided to come clean: I was not interested in the photographs from the standpoint of the trial but for the purpose of filing a complaint against a police officer. In that case, I was told I needed to visit the Internal Affairs unit of the Minneapolis Police Department. It was in room 126.
An employee of that unit came out to the waiting room. I told him that I wished to file a complaint against the officer who had arrested me. He had asked me no questions but simply had me taken to the squad car. I said I realized that this was my word against his. However, I could show that this officer might be withholding important information from the record.
Proof existed in the form of the photograph taken of me at the Hennepin County jail. If the officer included this photograph in the evidence presented to the court, then I would not file a complaint. If it was omitted, then it showed that the officer was selectively choosing evidence to favor one of the parties. I did not have access to the photographs but Internal Affairs did.
The officer said he could not help me. He said I would have my day in court where I would have to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt to be convicted. The police reports were just one step in that process. I said I was coming to Internal Affairs not to influence that process but to identify possibly dishonest conduct by a particular officer in making arrests. I thought that information might interest the police hierarchy.
The officer would not budge. He stuck with the idea that I would have my day in court. We spent about ten minutes going round and round with the same arguments. Finally the officer said something revealing. “I suggest that you read the statutes on domestic abuse,” he said. “We don’t even have to prove that the defendant laid a hand on the victim.” I, who had a physical altercation with my wife, was skating on thin ice.
In other words, it seemed to me, anyone can accuse anyone else of domestic abuse by alleging behavior which made him or her “frightened”. As a practical matter, it would have to be a woman accusing a man because the police would not believe that the physically more powerful male would be frightened by threats of a female unless a weapon had been used.
When I received my mail a week later, I found nine letters or postcards from defense attorneys offering to represent me. In order to defend myself against a charge which carries a maximum penalty of $500 upon conviction, I was being asked to spend thousands of dollars for attorney fees. That, too, is how the system works.
another police-escorted visit and a rental-license inspection
Time went on. From the downstairs tenant at 1702 Glenwood Avenue, my former wife, I learned that my current wife remained in the house. She was sometimes seen walking Do Do outside. That was a good sign. A bad sign was that my wife was seen bringing groups of people to the house. Strange noises were coming from my office. My wife was sometimes seen removing suitcases or boxes from the house. She seemed to preparing to move out of town.
My particular fear was that my wife would take one of my most valuable possessions - a cartoon celluloid personally autographed to me by Walt Disney. I had no insurance on this artwork or indeed any evidence that it existed. My wife could simply remove this object from the house and I would be powerless to respond.
On the morning of Monday, February 28th, I resolved to retrieve the cartoon using my opportunity to visit the house with a police escort. I carried a black plastic garbage bag to conceal the item as it was carried past outside. My wife, ever the diplomat, was meanwhile asking the officers if they wanted a cup of Chinese tea.
My first move was to take more clothing, mainly socks and underwear. My wife objected to my putting those items in the large bag. Then I went into a closet where the cartoon was kept in a box on a shelf. Unfortunately the box fell from the shelf as I was attempting to remove it. My wife immediately came into the closet and asked what I was doing. When I explained, she said she would never think of touching those things. She did agree to let me put the entire box of art objects in the garbage bag.
Now there was the matter of getting past the police. My wife claimed that she wanted to keep the art objects in the house because I might give them to other people. I argued that I should be allowed to remove the cartoon because it had my name on it. She argued that the items would be safe if she sealed the bag with tape. The officer believed that we would eventually reconcile. In that case, such possessions should remain in the house.
As in a previous visit, I gave my wife $100 in cash for her living expenses. After accepting the money, she gave me two parking tickets for $42 apiece that she had received for parking on the wrong side of the street during a snow emergency. Normally, I handle that kind of problem. That afternoon, I met with a man in the traffic-ticket appeals department in the Government Center who let me settle both tickets for $20.
Another event that day was the city’s rental-license inspection of my house at 1702 Glenwood Avenue. The inspector arrived at 10:00 a.m. I explained that I could not come near the house because of a court order. Fortunately, Joe Nelson, who had been acting as a property manager, was on hand to accompany the inspector on his rounds. Seated in a car parked down the street, I grew increasingly alarmed as the inspector spent fifty minutes in the first unit. Joe told me later that this time had also included inspecting the basement.
After the inspection, the inspector explained that he used a point system to evaluate the condition of houses. Missing smoke detectors received so many points, holes in the wall received another number of points, etc. If the point total exceeded a certain number, the inspector would issue an order of condemnation, which would require that the house be vacated. The condemnation would not be carried out, however, if the repairs were made by the stated date. Joe assured me privately that the requested repairs were relatively minor.
Four days later, a green Day-Glo sheet was posted on the front door of my house which read: “NOTICE In accordance with Chapter 244, Section 244.1450 and 244.1470 and/or Chapter 249 of the Housing Maintenance Code of the City of Minneapolis, the premises, building and structure hereon located at 1702 Glenwood Ave. N. are hereby declared unfit for human habitation and dangerous to life and health because of: LACK OF MAINTENANCE. You as owner are hereby ordered to abate the conditions above cited by 10-APR-2011. Failure to bring the building into compRosece will result in the building being condemned.”
Prospectively, Judge Weinert’s domestic-abuse order, forbidding me to visit my home at 1702 Glenwood Avenue, would run past the April 10th deadline. I, of course, would be prevented from personally making the repairs which the city was ordering as a result of the rental-license inspection. If I did not have my friend Joe Nelson help me with maintenance on my properties, I might well lose my home. I had described the situation to the judge but had failed to convince him to let me visit the house to help with the repairs.
Note: Normally “lack of maintenance” means that a building lacks plumbing or electrical facilities or the furnace is not working. My house had no problems with any of these functions. In this case, it had failed an inspector’s test based on an accumulation of points associated with code violations. For instance, it did not have 20-minute rated fire doors between each unit and common areas or carbon-monoxide detectors within ten feet of each bedroom. For these reasons, the placard states that the building is “declared unfit for human habitation and dangerous to life and health.”
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