From Roger Shuler, the Alabama blogger "Legal Schnauzer," Thought you might like to see this video of my house being unlawfully "auctioned" in Shelby County, Alabama. The attorney who "bought" my interest in my house is Bill Swatek. His son Dax Swatek was campaign manager for Alabama Governor Bob Riley and U.S. Attorney Alice Martin (who first went after Don Siegelman) and he used to work for Bill Canary, who is famed for his quote about Karl Rove and "his girls taking care of" Siegelman. In other words, Bill Swatek has direct ties to Karl Rove and the Bush White House, and this video shows the kind of stuff he gets away with in Alabama.
Roger
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2008/05/showdown-in-shelby-county-part-ii.html#linksWednesday, May 14, 2008
Showdown in Shelby County, Part II What's it like to be cheated in George W. Bush's America, in Karl Rove's Alabama?
Come along for our little version of show and tell. We hope you find it educational.
First, we have a clip that was filmed about 20 minutes before our house was to be unlawfully auctioned. Columbiana, Alabama, truly is in the middle of nowhere. But between wind gusts and motorcycles, and general traffic, and even a siren, we had all kinds of background noise. Hope you can hear most of what's going on. On a lighter note, I told my inexperienced cinematographer that when I mentioned "Shelby County Courthouse" on this first clip, she was to pan and show the courthouse itself. You'll notice that I had to say the magic words several times and actually point at the courthouse before my cinematographer thought, "Oh yeah, there's a courthouse over there!" Guess you get what you pay for in cinematographers these days. Actually, my cinematographer deserves a whole lot of credit for this story being told. I write the words, but many of the thoughts, and the majority of the courage needed to put those thoughts on paper, come from her. If this just involved me, I probably would have caved in a long time ago. But to quote Hillary Clinton, I'm not giving up.
VIDEO AT LINK
In this next clip, we have the "auction" itself. Speaking of background noise, I didn't realize how many birds were chirping and having a grand time while this was going down. Guess they were wrens, with maybe a mockingbird or two in the choir. Wish I'd had Atticus Finch on my side. Don't find too many Atticus Finch's around in Alabama these days. The deputy conducting the "auction" is Bubba Caudill, who looks like he came from a cast party for Smokey and the Bandit. The attorney who places the winning "bid" is Bill Swatek, who looks like he came from a cast party for the "The Grifters." Notice the look on Swatek's face when he's asked why he waited three-plus years, after I started a blog, to suddenly get interested in this "judgment." Notice the look on his face when he's asked why he's never asked for the money. By the way, when Swatek saw we were in the vicinity, he went back in the courthouse and about four additional deputies appeared. Guess we were a big security risk. This all prompted my cinematographer to quip, "How many deputies does it take to screw up an auction in Shelby County?"
VIDEO AT LINK
In the next clip, your correspondent tries to summarize events and tells you what the actual law says - how the scene you just witnessed could not take place.
VIDEO AT LINK
Finally, we note that Bill Swatek and Bubba Caudill are bold enough to unlawfully "auction" my house, but they aren't bold enough to hang around and answer questions about it afterward. That's the way most bullies are, isn't it? When you push back, they curl up their lip and go hide behind someone's skirt.
VIDEO AT LINK
Hope this has given you a feel for corruption in George W. Bush's America--May 12, 2008. We have much more coming on this story, and we have more video reports coming. We have all kinds of documents to share, and they will show you exactly the kind of attorney Bill Swatek really is. They also will show what his client, my criminally inclined neighbor Mike McGarity, is all about.
I stopped by the Sheriff's Office and tried to get a comment from Sheriff Chris Curry. Unfortunately, he was "out to lunch." I'm going to try to set up an appointment for an on-camera interview with him. If you would like to e-mail Sheriff Curry and encourage him to talk on camera with Legal Schnauzer, you can contact him at ccurry@shelbycountyalabama.net.
Hope you will stay tuned as I continue to channel my inner Michael Moore and try to expose the cockroaches who have tarnished a country that used to stand for something.
FOR MORE BACKGROUND YOU CAN READ THIS POST:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3156333The Deep South could be called Ground Zero for corruption in the Bush Department of Justice.
A growing body of evidence possibly indicates the Bush DOJ has instigated a number of prosecutions around the country not because the defendants had committed federal crimes, but because they were Democrats with either political or financial clout. The Bush DOJ seems particularly threatened by progressives in red states, such as Alabama and Mississippi.
Is that a coincidence, considering that Karl Rove built his national reputation on state judicial races in Alabama and has strong ties to the Mississippi GOP hierarchy, including sitting governor Haley Barbour?
A number of major news organizations, including ‘60 Minutes,’ evidently think it might not be a coincidence, and they have focused national attention on what appear to be politically motivated prosecutions in the Deep South.
Here is a question the mainstream press has not examined in detail: Are there connections between cases where the GOP appears to have targeted certain individuals in Southern states for political reasons? Is there a gameplan the GOP tends to bring out when it feels threatened in a red-state stronghold?
The DOJ scandal, which started with the firings of nine U.S. attorneys in December 2006 (has) (former Gov. Don) Siegelman (as) the best known target of the Bush DOJ. But a case in Mississippi involving attorney Paul Minor, a prominent donor to numerous Democratic candidates, might be an even more alarming and clear example of a political prosecution. The Minor case is not as well known as the Siegelman case, but the facts show that it might be an even more glaring example of political prosecution.
And for Minor and his wife, any redress to his case is of time-sensitive critical importance.
A third case that is even less well known than the Minor case – that of Shuler’s, who lives in Birmingham and writes the blog Legal Schnauzer, may be evidence of the DOJ-related Deep South political prosecution, even if only on a smaller scale.
Shuler started Legal Schnauzer in June 2007 after a seven-year ordeal in which he repeatedly witnessed corruption by Republican judges in Alabama state courts. A neighbor sued Shuler over a property-related matter in late 2000. The neighbor's lawsuit, by law, had to be dismissed (summary judgment) in six to eight months time. But Republican judges made clear and repeated unlawful rulings, causing the case to drag on for years and costing Shuler and his wife--and Alabama taxpayers--thousands of dollars. The case, by law, according to Shuler, could not go to trial. But Republican judges forced it to trial, and a jury found in favor of Shuler's neighbor for $1,525.
Why would Alabama state judges unlawfully favor Shuler's neighbor? Here is what Shuler writes:
"It's not because the neighbor, Mike McGarity, is an upstanding citizen. McGarity has at least eight criminal convictions in his background, including convictions on violence- and sex-related offenses. I have written about this on my blog.
McGarity, however, had a secret weapon--an attorney with strong family ties to Alabama's Republican hierarchy. McGarity's lawyer, who crafted the baseless lawsuit against me, is a man named William E. Swatek. Swatek, like his client, has an unseemly background. He has been disciplined by the Alabama State Bar three times, including a suspension of his license for acts of "dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation." The Bar also found that Swatek had engaged in activities that "adversely reflects on his fitness to practice law." Swatek even was prosecuted in criminal court for perjury.
In spite of all that, Swatek evidently maintains an exalted, and protected, status among Alabama's Republican judges. Why? Well, Swatek's son, Dax Swatek, is a Montgomery-based "campaign consultant" for Republican candidates. His clients have included Alice Martin, now U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, and sitting Governor Bob Riley. Dax Swatek has been a close associate of Bill Canary, the GOP operative who has strong ties to Karl Rove and apparently was at the heart of plans to prosecute Don Siegelman.
Alabama law provides a number of mechanisms for punishing attorneys who file baseless lawsuits. Bill Swatek has managed to escape such punishment, apparently because his son has connections that lead right to the Bush White House.
Bill Swatek, however, has not escaped the critical eye of the Legal Schnauzer. After failing to receive justice in Alabama's GOP-controlled courts, I turned to the blogosphere. I wrote in depth about the Siegelman and Minor cases. And in stark, often biting posts, I provided details about unlawful actions he had witnessed firsthand in Alabama state courts.
At first, my blog seemed to stir little interest in GOP circles. But then Harper's Scott Horton, a leading chronicler of shenanigans in the Bush DOJ, linked to Legal Schnauzer. And when the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a hearing last fall on selective prosecution, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) entered documents related to the Minor prosecution in Mississippi. Those documents contained repeated references to Legal Schnauzer and my reporting on the Minor case."
Suddenly, it seemed, Shuler had Republicans' attention. And the GOP evidently was not pleased with Legal Schnauzer.
For more than three years, according to Shuler, Bill Swatek had made no effort to collect the $1,525 judgment against him. "No certified letters, no phone calls, no actions of any kind demanding that I pay up."
"But about three months after Legal Schnauzer had started, I received a writ of execution from his county clerk, saying he owed a judgment in the amount of $2,229.64 (the original amount, plus three years worth of interest.) But the document, filed by County Clerk Mary Harris, was about more than money. It said my house and cars were subject to seizure in order to satisfy the judgment.
A few weeks later, I received a notice of levy from Sheriff Chris Curry. This said that my house was to be auctioned in order to satisfy the judgment. You heard that right--a house was going to be sold to satisfy a judgment of less than $2,300.
Curiously, my wife and I never received a ‘Notice of Right to Claim Exemption,’ which by law must be included with any writ of execution. When Shuler filed a claim of exemption anyway, it by law put a stay on the sheriff's sale and required McGarity to file a contest. But Shelby County authorities ignored this requirement and moved forward with plans to sell the Shulers’ house.
The sale was postponed once, because of an error in the ad that must be run three times in a general-circulation newspaper. But a new notice of levy has been issued, and the house evidently will be sold in about a month."
Shuler argues that his case shows that the Southern GOP does not go after only powerful figures such as Don Siegelman or the Paul Minor defendants. “Republicans in the ‘Age of Rove’ even go after bloggers.” The attempt at a ‘Republican Permanent Majority’ (anathema to true representative democracy), seems to know no compassion or empathy. Justice not blind?
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