GUILTY CA - Dr. William Ayres for child molestation, San Mateo, 2007 #2

[Mercyneal]

Mckowan, Wagstaffe, Balfour, Part II

Fortunately for Balfour, she had the support of her journalist friends as well as some lawyers in her fight to get back into see the Ayres trial. Robin Sax, a former sex crimes prosecutor in Los Angeles and frequent contributor on the Today Show and other television shows, volunteered to write a story about Balfour's exclusion from the courtroom for the Huffington Post.

Here's the story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-sax/people-v-ayres-wheres-the_b_220910.html

When it was published, some citizens of San Mateo County started sending Steve Wagstaffe the story and asking why Mckowan and his office was treating so badly the person who fought for the rights of the Ayres victims to be heard for so many years, when no one else in San Mateo County was interested in them?

Steve Wagstaffe seemed irked by the Huffington Post story, which did not make his office look good. But still, in his office, just before the story came out, Wagstaffe admitted to Balfour that he could understand why she was angry with Mckowan. " I will speak to her about her behavior after the trial," he said. Balfour, foolishly, believed Wagstaffe, and thought he was on her side. Never will she trust him again.

For the next day, June 27, 2009 a citizen of San Mateo County forwarded an email that they had received from Steve Wagstaffe on the matter of Mckowan's actions towards Balfour. We have Wagstaffe's email in front of us now. In the email he puts down LA prosecutor Robin Sax, the author of the Huffington Post piece by saying she has a "very basic misunderstanding of the law" (Bad move, Mr. Wagstaffe to speak ill of your colleagues) and then after he has put Sax down says "I will not speak ill of her."

Wagstaffe, who the day before in his office had assured Balfour that he understood why she would be angry with prosecutor Mckowan for her actions, then states in the letter to the citizen, " I am somewhat mystified by the outrage at deputy district attorney Melissa Mckowan and the District Attorney's office. There seems to be some belief that we had some control over this situation and could have prevented Judge Freeman from entering this [witness exclusionary ] order.

Actually, in a functional District Attorney's office, there would have been some control exerted over Mckowan's actions. But no one seems to be minding the store over at the highly dysfunctional San Mateo DA's office, where Steve Wagstaffe has not only shown himself to be a weak manager, but one who talks out of both sides of his mouth as well.
No wonder so many don't trust him.

 

[Mercyneal]

It occurs to me as I read about the saga of Mckowan's behavior last summer that if she had spent one iota as much energy into debunking Ayres' claim that giving boys physicals was part of his standard "therapeutic model" from the 1960s than she did trying to shove Balfour out of the courtroom,she could very well have won the case.

Talk about misguided direction !

 

[Mercyneal]

Reporter Victoria Balfour would like to give a shout out to Boston lawyer Wendy Murphy, a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School;founder and director of the Victim Advocacy and Research Group,associate editor of the Sexual Assault Report ;
legal analyst on NBC, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News, Court TV, "Dateline," "Good Morning America," "The Today Show," and NPR's "The Connection" for educating her about the issue of unfair witness exclusion tactics by both prosecutors and defense lawyers. Not only did Murphy encourage her to fight the unfair tactics of the San Mateo District Attorney's office, but she did an emergency writ for Balfour pro bono to help her get back into the Ayres trial.

Last summer, Wendy Murphy did a radio show with lawyer Mickey Sherman, (who represented Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel in the Martha Moxley murder case,) on the unfair tactics by the San Mateo District Attorney's office towards Balfour in the Ayres case and the common practice of prosecutors and defense attorneys colluding to keep people out of the courtroom unfairly.

We recommend that Websleuthers educate themselves to the problem of prosecutors and defense attorneys who routinely abuse their power to unfairly exclude people from the courtroom.

 

[Mercyneal]

I just saw this ad on SFBayarea Craigslist about Ayres prosecutor Melissa Mckowan.
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/com/1911071160.html

 

[Mercyneal]

Anyone think that the San Mateo DA's office might have a Mike Nifong problem on their hands?

 

[Mercyneal]

Over at the San Mateo Daily Journal forum, reporter Victoria Balfour, who has spent eight years investigating Ayres talks about the failure of the San Mateo District Attorney's office to challenge the defense's theory that Ayres was trained to do physical exams on children in therapy.

Called "The DA's Curious Blind Spot: The Training of Dr. William Ayres", it's a must read.

The DA's Curious Blind Spot: The Training of Dr. William Ayres - San Mateo Daily Journal - Forum

 

[Missizzy]

An excellent use of Craigslist. I'm hopeful that someone steps out of the shadows.

And ITA, the above link is a "must read". Curious blind spot, indeed.

 

[Mercyneal]

From reporter Victoria Balfour's report today on the San Mateo Daily Journal Forum:

Intimidation Tactics

One would think with the news reports and the sheer number of victims, with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association booting Ayres out of their organizations, that Dr. Bryant would have come to her senses by now and stop defending Ayres. But instead, while even doctors who knew Ayres at Judge Baker express their outrage and disgust with him, Bryant has simply ramped up her defense of her old pal Ayres.

On June 26, 2009 on the William Ayres blog, I wrote about a psychiatrist who was an Ayres supporter who attempted at a medical meeting to intimidate prosecution witness Dr. Lynn Ponton just a few weeks before Ponton was about to testify in the Ayres trial. Ponton, as some of you may know, was the first doctor to file a sexual abuse complaint against to the California Medical BoardAyres in 2004, after interviewing Steve Abrams for the civil suit. When Ayres found out that Ponton had filed a complaint on him, he retaliated by acting like a and filing some sort of bogus complaint about her to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Here’s my description on the Ayres blog last year of the psychiatrist who tried to intimidate Ponton at last year’s medical meeting:

We have heard that one of Ayres' medical colleagues and a supporter- about the only one left- angrily confronted Dr. Ponton at a medical meeting just a few weeks ago for filing the abuse report to the Medical Board. This doctor - a psychiatrist- told Ponton that she had ruined Ayres' life because she dared to do the right thing by trying to get a predator off the street. It's very worrisome to us that a psychiatrist is more concerned about her crony than the lives of the victims Ayres has ruined. We won't give her name, but enterprising readers of this blog need only go to Google and look for a letter that this doctor wrote in defense of Dr. Ayres in 2006 to the San Mateo County Times. Since the witness list is sealed, we have no way of knowing if this psychiatrist will be a character witness for the defense. But it certainly seems to us that her angry confrontation with Dr. Ponton at the medical meeting could almost be construed as witness intimidation.

__________________________


I can now tell you that the psychiatrist who tried to intimidate Dr. Ponton last year was Dr. Etta Bryant.

Although I didn't put this in the story last year, Ponton also recalled that during the confrontation, Bryant was "redfaced and shaking with rage and kept saying, "What are you doing?? Do you know that you've ruined Bill Ayres' life? Don't you care about that?"

It’s too bad that Bryant hasn’t put half of that red- faced energy into worrying about all those boys Ayres has molested and whose lives are ruined forever,isn't it?

 

[Mercyneal]

More from reporter Victoria Balfour's report on Dr. Etta Bryant, Ayres' supporter. Link: Dr. Etta Bryant: Number One Ayres Defender - San Mateo Daily Journal - Forum

Breaking the Law

During Ayres’ criminal trial last June, an Ayres victim and his mother became distressed when they saw Bryant hanging around with Ayres and his supporters in the courtroom. The mother of the victim had once upon a time been Bryant’s patient.

The mother of the victim then made an appointment to see Dr. Bryant, which took place in June, during the trial.

The mother then told Bryant that Ayres had molested her son.

Bryant’s reply? “You’ve put me in a difficult situation. I should go to the police but Ayres and I are friends..”

Bryant never reported the abuse to authorities. This is against the law.

And even worse, even after receiving a report from the mother of the victim that Ayres had abused her son, Dr. Bryant for the remainder of the trial continued to support Ayres and to sit with Ayres supporters like Thea and Dr. Sam Leavitt.

It is now a year later. Bryant has still not reported the abuse to the California Medical Board. Let us hope that someone from the California Medical Board is reading this forum

 

[Mercyneal]

Can anyone else see how wrong this is on so many levels?

Dr. Lynn Ponton files a complaint with the California Medical Board in 2004 to report that Ayres had molested a boy named Steve Abrams. And Bryant is angry with her for doing the right thing and protecting a victim and blowing the whistle on Ayres? She's angry that by helping a victim, Dr. Ponton has ruined Ayres' life!

This is a very bad nightmare.

 

[Mercyneal]

New report up on the Daily Journal Forum by reporter Victoria Balfour on the DA's failure to contact the prominent psychiatrist who was one of only six people who trained with Ayres at Yale and who says he is lying.

Excerpt from Daily Journal:

A Yale Colleague of Ayres Wants to Help the Victims. So Why Is No One Calling Him?

In 1956-1957, when Ayres did his first (and only ) year in pediatrics at Yale, he was one of only seven interns in his training group. In April I found one of those doctors who trained with Ayres in that first year of pediatric training. This doctor is very prominent, having worked in the Kennedy White House and with Richard Nixon. He was also for many years the Director of the National Institute of Health in Washington DC, which made him the top psychiatrist in the country.

I posed this question to the doctor: Did child psychiatrist Al Solnit train you in pediatrics to do physicals?

A)” No,” the prominent psychiatrist said. “What nonsense! Pediatrics staff taught us. I knew Solnit and he didn’t do physical exams on kids in therapy.
And I’ve been reading up on the Ayres case and I can’t believe what he has been getting away with all these years. It’s a tragedy for his victims. I would like to see justice done for the victims of Ayres. What can I do to help? “

The prominent doctor said that in his experience, a good prosecutor does his or homework on witnesses and reaches out to him. He said that if the San Mateo prosecutor “wanted to win the case”, that she should contact him.

His personal cell phone number, resume and his debunking of Ayres’ training was given to the prosecutor in April by a mother of an Ayres victim.

But the doctor never heard from the prosecutor.

More here:Fact Checking The Training of Dr. William Ayres at Yale - San Mateo Daily Journal - Forum

 

[Mercyneal]

Dr. Etta Bryant, the long-time supporter of Dr. Ayres who yelled at another doctor for reporting Ayres to the California Medical Board, was on a committed with Ayres in 1997 that wrote "Practice Parameters For Children Who May Have Been Sexually Abused" for the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry."

Pages 37S-56S (October 1997) http://www.journals.elsevierhealth.c...25934/abstract

Practice Parameters for the Forensic Evaluation of Children and Adolescents Who May Have Been Physically or Sexually Abused

These practice parameters describe the forensic evaluation of children and adolescents who may have been physically or sexually abused. The recommendations are drawn from guidelines that have been published by various professional organizations and authors and are based on available scientific research and the current state of clinical practice. These parameters consider the clinical presentation of abused children, normative sexual behavior of children, interview techniques, the possibility of false statements, the assessment of credibility, and important forensic issues.


These parameters were developed by William Bernet, M.D., principal author, and the Work Group on Quality Issues: William Ayres, M.D., and John E. Dunne, M.D., Chairmen. Members: Elissa Benedek, M.D., Gail A. Bernstein, M.D., Etta Bryant, M.D.


And yet Bryant won't report an incident of child abuse by Ayres reported to her in June 2009, because as she told the mother of the victim who reported it to her, " Ayres and I are friends." Would the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry like to know about this?

 

[Mercyneal]

From the San Mateo Daily Journal Forum:Memo to Steve Wagstaffe - San Mateo Daily Journal - Forum

Memo to Steve Wagstaffe
Mr. Wagstaffe:

Some of us think it is time that you make it mandatory for your prosecutors to attend a seminar on comportment and bedside manner when dealing with prosecution witnesses whose cases they represent. We also think that you make it mandatory for your employees to attend a course in ethics. If your office already has services like this in place, then we think it's time that at least one prosecutor in your office take a refresher course.

In the last year, at least one prosecutor in your office has engaged in the following:

-Scolding prosecution witnesses

-Snapping at prosecution witnesses

-Harshly rebuking prosecution witnesses

-Making a hurtful, false accusation towards a prosecution witness with no basis in fact.

-Engaging in hostile and intimidating behavior towards a member of the public- without whose work your office would not be trying the Ayres case

-Engaging in belittling comments about a member of the public to prosecution witnesses - witnesses that the member of the public found for the district attorney's office.

-Spreading a false rumor that borders on slander with no basis in fact about a member of the public - without whose work your office would not be trying the Ayres case.

- Dismissing statements that you, Steve Wagstaffe, have made yourself to a member of the public, in a harsh and belittling manner in front of a number of spectators in the courtroom, as in, "Steve doesn't know what he's talking about!" For any employee to be making dismissive comments about their boss to members of the public inside a courtroom is not just improper, but does not exactly inspire confidence in the district attorney's office as a whole.

Mr. Wagstaffe: you know what this is about. It has all been documented in a package sent to you Priority Mail on August 18, 2010.

At least one of your prosecutors is abusing the power of their office, and if something isn't done, the problem is only going to get worse.

 

[ohiogirl]

Wow, good for her! I wonder what he thinks of this?

 

[Mercyneal]

The Judge Baker Doctors' Word Against the San Mateo District Attorney's Office: The Controversy Deepens"

http://williamayreswatch.blogspot.com/2010/09/judge-baker-doctors-word-against-san.html

The Judge Baker doctor who knew Ayres and whom the prosecutor stated on the Ayres blog was "physically unable to travel" says that the prosecutor is "confused" and says she "keeps travelling all the time."

 

[Belinda]

Yeah, I guess 'confused' would be one word for it.

 

[Mercyneal]

Belinda, you have an excellent point. The Ayres blog asks a number of questions about why the prosecutor's version of various events is so glaringly at odd with so many others.

What the blog doesn't mention is that right after the trial, the prosecutor falsely accused a poor mother of an Ayres victim of feeding confidential information from the DA's office to the Ayres blog. The prosecutor said to the mother in an intimidating fashion, " I have a file on this back in my office."

The Ayres blog has only two contributors - an Ayres victim and reporter Victoria Balfour. They have never received any information from any parents of the Ayres victims. Moreover, I know they are very confused by the prosecutor's allegations against the mother, because the prosecutor herself in a comment she wrote under her own name on January 29, 2010, states that she "NEVER" reads the blog.

Parents and prosecution witnesses who have been harshly rebuked by the prosecutor have been afraid to speak up - until now. Now they're speaking up.

Please read the Ayres blog. There are many questions about the actions of the San Mateo DA's office, and apparent lack of supervision that need to be addressed. For those who would like answers to these questions, I would strongly urge you to contact San Mateo Chief Deputy DA Steve Wagstaffe himself at: [email protected] or call: 650-363-4752.

 

[Mercyneal]

Former prosecutor and legal television analyst Wendy Murphy says she has written in her book about the need for people to rise up and organize and fight for prosecutors who are ethical and give a damn, but has never once seen organization. She says that there have been many other cases where the prosecutor is antagonistic and unethical towards her own witnesses, but no one ever fights back. She is urging people to organize like the mothers did in MADD.

Wendy Murphy Bio: http://www.speakersaccess.com/wendy-murphy

 

[Mercyneal]

Pediatrician in Arizona just charged with distributing child . Will it ever stop?

http://www.azfamily.com/news/local/...d-with-distributing-child-🤬🤬🤬🤬-102100848.html

 

[Mercyneal]

Steve Wagstaffe, the Deputy DA of San Mateo, has been alerted to the prosecutor's misstatements and contradictions by a number of citizens. Everyone is waiting to see if he is going to take action.