The Fourth Element, Part 2
The Greene County Common Pleas Court displays the following announcement on their website:
CIVIL MEDIATION
Greene County Civil Mediation Program was established to provide the community with an alternative forum in which to resolve civil disputes. Through 3rd party facilitated negotiation, disputants are empowered to reach mutually beneficial agreements without expending the significant time and costs often associated with civil litigation.
ESTABLISHED REASON: In establishing a civil mediation program, Greene County hopes to dramatically increase the public’s access to improved quality of justice, while at the same time conserving community resources and reducing delays in the disposition of court cases.
Related to Greene County Common Pleas Court Case No. 2009CV0305 more hollow words have never been written or spoken. Virtually every action by the defense, in this case County Prosecutor Steve Haller, and the Court through Judge Sumner Walters was calculated to keep the relevant facts away from third party scrutiny by an independent prosecutor, the media, a trial jury or grand jury, or a panel of mediators. Defendants Haller, Perales and Reid know full well that if this case found its way into the light of day, Greene County government would be exposed for the biggest fraud in Ohio since Coingate, a pay-to-play political scandal that plagued Governor Taft toward the end of his second term. OCGJ understands that’s a bold statement, but we are also well equipped to back it up. To illustrate, we’ll skip to the end of the case and let you be the judge.
In essence, Case No. 2009CV0305 is a writ of mandamus to force Defendants Haller, Reid and Perales to release public records related to the 2003 BRAC Initiative Agreement. Greene County Prosecutor Steve Haller acted as his own defense counsel and Defendants Marilyn Reid and Rick Perales as well. We’ve all heard the catch phrase, “He who defends himself in a court of law has a fool for a client.” However Prosecutor Haller is no fool, because he always knew that if he botched the defense (which he did) a corrupt judge would be there to bail him out, and here’s how it happened.
Judge Sumner Walters dismissed Greene County Common Pleas Court Case No. 2009CV0305 on May 27th, 2009. Within 24 hours of the dismissal I was notified by Assistant Greene County Prosecutor Tom Miller that two boxes of documents would be made available for my review. The profound impact of that action by Defendant Haller cannot be overstated. Here the Court had just dismissed my lawsuit to force release of public records related to the BRAC Initiative Agreement and Defendant Haller, who acted as his own defense counsel released the records anyway. He could have produced those records six months earlier when I filed the lawsuit. In any case, Haller won his case when Judge Walters dismissed it, but in what amounts to a virtual confession after the fact, Haller released some of the records. In effect, the chief law enforcement officer in Greene County was allowed to operate on both sides of the law, but there’s more…..
Over the next several weeks I examined the documents on four occasions, but before the first session I received a call from the FBI requesting that I act as a “cooperating witness” in an investigation of the BRAC Initiative Agreement. I agreed to meet my FBI contact at my home on June 12, 2009. I was thrilled that someone was finally paying attention, and imagine my surprise when the FBI agent showed up with a Department of Defense Inspector General fraud investigator.
At this point, it’s important to take pause for a moment as you may justifiably be asking, “How can OCGJ make this stuff up?” My answer would be that if I fabricated even parts of this report, by now the political class would have ruined my life to include relieving me of my security clearance or worse.
In any case, during the summer of 2009 I reviewed the documents and sent my findings to my FBI contact. Apparently my investigation struck a nerve as in August Assistant Greene County Prosecutor Tom Miller notified me that the Dayton U.S. Attorney’s office had subpoenaed 26 boxes of BRAC Initiative Agreement documents held by The Greentree Group. At first I rejoiced that federal law enforcement officials had finally taken seriously all the work I had done to uncover what could be the “scandal of the decade” in Ohio. Unfortunately that proved to be a rush to judgment as five years later OCGJ can confirm that the intent of the FBI was not to follow through on our investigation, but to vacuum up any potential adverse factual information, and conceal it from public scrutiny. The trouble with that logic is that all the evidence necessary to prosecute those in the political class with their fingerprints on the BRAC Initiative Agreement is already archived in the public record, unless of course they wipe that clean as well.
