Has the Second Battle of Athens Begun? 

PEACEFUL CALL TO ALL CITIZENS WHO HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION

by Sharon Rondeau, h/t Linda Jordan

“Give as if your freedom depended on it, because it does”

 

(Jul. 5, 2014) — A legal defense fund has been established by citizen investigator Linda Jordan for CDR Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III (Ret.), who was falsely accused by a McMinn County, TN grand jury of serious crimes and convicted after a show trial on June 24, 2014.

Despite no police report or any evidence, Fitzpatrick was convicted of “aggravated perjury” and “extortion” unanimously by 12 ignorant and possibly intimidated jurors whose names are here.

Fitzpatrick’s “crimes” were his attempts to bring evidence of law-breaking on the part of judges, prosecutors, grand jury foremen, sheriffs, deputies, court clerks, and other criminal facilitators to the local grand jury. His accuser, former grand jury foreman Jeffrey Cunningham, changed his story while testifying by denying that he had formally accused Fitzpatrick of anything.

In February, Cunningham had threatened Fitzpatrick with arrest if he were to return to submit documents to the grand jury.  Cunningham, a licensed attorney and president of Athens Federal Community Bank, should have known that Tennessee law allows for any citizen to submit a petition with evidence to the grand jury and swear to its veracity.

Cunningham approached Fitzpatrick in the courthouse with threats; Fitzpatrick did not approach Cunningham.

Because the Tennessee Attorney General’s office took the position last fall that a grand jury foreman is chosen by the criminal court judge and not by “automated means,” as the law requires, Fitzpatrick attempted to inform the sitting grand jury that their foreman was a court employee, not empaneled from the jury pool as they had been.

On March 18, sheriff’s deputies followed through on Cunningham’s threat, arresting Fitzpatrick while he was reading a book on a bench outside the McMinn County courthouse.  By that date, Cunningham had resigned as grand jury foreman, although another acquaintance of Judge Amy Reedy and career law-enforcement officer was appointed in his stead on the same day.

Eastern Tennessee is a hotbed of public corruption, graft, drug manufacturing and distribution, bribery, human trafficking and a thoroughly corrupt and entrenched judiciary.

Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood is scheduled to sentence Fitzpatrick on August 19. Are we going to sit quietly by and allow Fitzpatrick’s life to be squandered in a Tennessee jail or state prison?

Think of Fitzpatrick’s current position as if it were your own.

Fitzpatrick has been jailed a total of seven times over the last four years for exposing the judicial misconduct within Tennessee’s Tenth Judicial District which allows a grand jury foreman to serve indefinitely to do the judge’s bidding and vote to indict as many people as possible, whether innocent or guilty, in a long-existing prisoners-for-profit scheme.

Corrupt Tennessee courts with rogue judges have destroyed an untold number of citizens’ families, stolen their property and livelihoods, and, most significant, their freedom.

All monies donated to the new fund will go to Atty. Irion to be used at his discretion, along with donations to the legal defense fund he established for the same cause two years ago.  Last week Irion filed an appeal with the Tennessee Supreme Court in another case for Fitzpatrick appealing the decision by a three-judge panel which upheld a conviction of “tampering with government documents” when Fitzpatrick actually took the documents to give them to the FBI as evidence of jury-rigging.

Over the last four years, juries in the Tenth Judicial District have criminalized a citizen’s arrest, the First Amendment, and providing evidence to the FBI at their own request.  “We need a smoking gun,” FBI Special Agent Roxane West had told Fitzpatrick in 2011.  However, when “the smoking gun” was provided, the FBI did nothing, and a rogue judge opined from the bench that a grand jury foreman can serve as long as the judge wishes.

While the first Battle of Athens used gunfire to oust a corrupt sheriff and his deputies from Athens, TN following a rigged election and stolen ballot boxes, this new battle will not.  This battle will be We the People giving of ourselves as if our freedom depended on it — because it does.

If an uninformed, likely intimidated jury can criminalize our First Amendment right to petition our government for redress of grievances, then what else can they do?  Who will be next?

Do we quietly stand for it and take more of the abuse, or do we fight?

Do we decide that we’re afraid, or do we demand an FBI, TBI, or congressional investigation since the Tennessee legislature, attorney general, and higher courts have done nothing?

The message is:  are you freeman or slave?  Are we worthy of the sacrifice which the Founders, and Fitzpatrick and others like him, have made for us?

Do we stand up or cower in the shadows, afraid of local bullying judges, a rogue Department of Justice, and the imposter in the White House?

Are we to throw off government shackles or allow them to be placed on someone who has done his best to unshackle others and open their eyes?

Think of all the innocent citizens of Tennessee who have been incarcerated as a result of judicial corruption.  Think of their wives, husbands, children, and their lost freedom.  Think of what their government has done to them with impunity.  Then pick up the phone; demand that the U.S. Congress launch an investigation, and give to the extent that you are able, because your freedom, just as much as Fitzpatrick’s, is at stake.

Litigation against criminal actors in the Tenth Judicial District may be under consideration.

Numbers to call:

Administrative Office of the Courts:  615-741-2687

Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, Athens Office:  423-745-4671; Washington, DC Office:  Phone: (202) 225-3271

Tennessee Senator Robert Corker:  202-224-3344

Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander:  Knoxville:  (865) 545-4253; Washington, DC:  (202) 224-4944

Tennessee Attorney General and Reporter Robert E. Cooper, Jr., Law Enforcement and Special Prosecutions Division:  (615) 741-3491

Judge Jon Kerry Blackwood:  865-594-6118

It is time.  We’re not taking it anymore.  We’ve had enough.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. — Thomas Jefferson