"Deliberate targeting of potential court witnesses (been meaning to talk with voynich about that)" - SD
Hi SD.
Ya, do so. would be an interesting read.
voynich said:
me too, sounds more like the Godfather than SW.
You're wishes are my command, folks.
There's a CO resident named Tom Miller. He is, or at least was, a lawyer and a court-certified handwriting expert. After several weeks of study, he came to a conclusion as to who wrote the RN: PR did. That's when Team R swung into action.
The Rs claimed for several years that the private investigators they had hired were only to hunt down leads the BPD were "ignoring." But what they were really doing was just what I said. Miller was roped, under false pretenses, into meeting with one of the Rs' hired experts. It turned out to be a set-up. The man who asked him to come along was a tabloid writer who tried to bribe the Rs' man for an RN copy.
Miller was arrested and charged. Now, THIS is where things get interesting. The Jefferson County DA, David Thomas, was friends with Hal Haddon, the Ramsey lawyer. In fact, they owed each other political favors. Haddon made a call to Thomas and asked him to make sure that Miller would be damaged goods if he were ever called to testify in court as to his conclusions, which was a possibility since he was well-known to the local judges and lawyers. The Jefferson DA offered Miller a plea-bargain. Voynich mentioned the Godfather. Apropos, certainly. But instead of an offer he couldn't refuse, the deal was an offer no spirited man could ever accept. The deal was, if Miller wanted to avoid a trial and possible jail time, he'd have to give up his law license and discredit his own status as a document examiner.
Miller told them to stuff their deal. So, he went to trial in 2001. At the trial, Miller's lawyer pulled off a real coup. He subpoenaed one of the private investigators responsible, a man named David L. Miller (no relation), and got him to
admit in open court that he was told by Haddon's office to dig up dirt on Miller to use against him if he were ever called to testify as to who he thought wrote the RN. He also admitted that he himself was just doing his job, and that the real dirty tricks were thought up at a higher level.
It took the jury less than an hour to find Miller not guilty. And just in case anyone thinks I'm just making this up, the transcript of the trial is available on Compact Disc under the title
Salute to American Justice. Look for it on eBay. Or, if you wait a little, I can try (no promises) to post it here from my copy.
As a coda to this story, later that year, JR was deposed in a civil trial. During that deposition, he admitted that his earlier statements were knowingly false. The private eyes were never meant to follow up on leads. Their job was to build a defense in case the Rs were ever brought to trial. To use JR's words, to "keep us out of jail."
Raises some interesting questions, doesn't it?
Voynich nailed it: "The Godfather."