Source: http://blog.fulldisclosure.net/2009/09/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 09:03:11+00:00

Document:
According to Sheriff Leroy Baca's personal spokesman, Steve Whitmore, the L A Times Reporter's presence at the jail for over an hour, was completely unnoticed by the jailers and security personnel. The Sheriff has banned interviews with Richard I. Fine so it must have been a complete surprise when he read Victoria Kim's article published on June 7, 2009. How she gained access to Fine's solitary confinement cell is apparently a mystery to Sheriff Baca and his personnel.
It is unknown at this time whether the L A Times was contacted by the Sheriff to determine how their reporter gained access to the high security jail and without the Sheriff's permission. In contrast to the L A Times sneaky tactics to get an "exclusive" interview, Full Disclosure Network has made numerous formal requests for a personal interview with Richard Fine only to be told that Judge David Yaffe had forbidden anyone to interview him.
Judge Yaffe sentenced Fine to an undetermined sentence with no bail and no release date, following the attorney's attempt to disqualify the Judge from sitting on a case where he had received illegal payments from a party in the case. That party was the County of Los Angeles and the case was Marina Strand Colony II Homeowners Association vs. County of Los Angeles.
The Sheriff is apparently so adamant that that no reporters are to interview Richard Fine that he told his spokesman Whitmore "this is not going to happen" many times, over and over. Listen to the audio tape of a voice mail message left on the Full Disclosure telephone where Mr. Whitmore describes the tone of the Sheriff.
The relationship between Sheriff Leroy Baca and the Los Angeles Superior Court Judges has been an interesting one. The Sheriff is constantly walking a tightrope to please the Judiciary to avoid their interference in the operations of his jail.
Sheriff Baca is apparently honoring Judge Yaffe's directions to stop press coverage of the case. Sheriff Baca is the Respondent in the case and Judge Yaffe has filed papers listing himself as the Real Party In Interest in the case. No Court Order has been entered in either the U S District Court or Ninth Circuit Court stopping the press from interviewing Richard I. Fine. So it would appear the two defendants in the case are interferring with the freedom of the press.
Los Angeles CA. Full Disclosure Network® presents B. Scott Minerd, Chief Investment Officer of Guggenheim Partners provides his insight on many of the critical issues facing America and California in a one hour video interview for cable television conducted by Leslie Dutton.
Guggenheim Partners is a diversified financial services firm with more than $100 billion in assets under supervision. Previously he was a managing director for Morgan Stanley and later Credit Suisse, where he oversaw fixed income credit trading in the United States, Europe and Asia.
In the six segments presented here Mr. Minerd outlines the causes, effects and solutions to the financial crisis that emerged in late 2008 at the end of the Republican Administration of George W. Bush and is now escalating under the Democrat Administration of President Barack Hussein Obama.
Vote-hungry politicians rush to exploit irresponsible homebuyers with promises of government charity that created exorbitant home prices and homeowners without ability to pay the generous irresponsible lenders. This is a short summary of Scott Minerd’s assessment of the current predicament and collapse of the housing market. Other issues covered: Personal Responsibility, Manipulating the System, Lower Living Standards.
In this final segment Scott Minerd summarizes the long-term crisis facing U.S. cities and schools, where costs will outstrip ability of pay. He points to the cause of the crisis and the role of the Federal Government. Then he predicts what will happen if the policies are allowed to continue without reversal or limitation.
Please let us know what you think about the following questions by posting in the comment section below.
Do you think the current economic emergency could result in interventions that could lead to the end our American way of life?
Do you think that it is unrestricted Free market Capitalism or Government Policies that are encouraging lenders to make bad loans?
Los Angeles, CA Important court documents have been reported missing from the U. S. Courts website known as “PACER” in the Richard I Fine case. Here is a 14 min video and transcript of the telephone interview with Mardi Mason and Richard Fine regarding the missing documents.
Mardi Mason: I have worked on very sophisticated and complicated cases but I have never seen any kind of situation like I’m looking at here in terms of problems with documents not even appearing in the docket. That’s a new one for me entirely.
Mardi Mason: It’s basically an index. It’s a typed list of what documents comprise the file. It would tell you the date received, it would assign a number in sequence when it came in, a short description of the document, maybe some notes from the clerk as to when it was actually entered, things like that. It’s just basically a simplified index of the documents that are in the case file.
Leslie Dutton: You found in past practices that if you wanted to check the Federal court website that the documents were usually there and posted properly?
Mardi Mason: Before all of this happened, it never would even have occurred to me to question the integrity of a court docket. Now, I never will again.
Leslie Dutton: Just tell us … how many have been missing?
Mardi Mason: Well, for example, in the district court case concerning disbarment, there are a total of seven documents in the docket. But they’re only identifying them by Numbers 1, 3, 4, 5 and 7, meaning Number 2 and Number 6 are missing. Both of those are Mr. Fine’s pleadings that he has filed. One is the Response to Order to Show Cause Re Disbarment, and the other is a Motion to Set Aside Order of Disbarment. What they’ve done is erase Richard’s restatement of the facts and his defenses from the record. They won’t let the public view the documents or even acknowledge that they exist. Yet the fact that the docket numbers were assigned and skipped proves they have them, they just don’t want the public to see what’s in them. At least that’s what I’m left to conclude; what other legitimate reason could there be?
Mardi Mason: I called yesterday on the latest one to turn up missing and I was passed to about five different clerks who essentially shrugged their shoulders and couldn’t explain why it wasn’t in the docket even though two other documents that we’d sent within the same package by FedEx that got there on Monday. Those other two are in the docket but the third one, a current Motion for Release, is missing. They don’t know … they transferred me to another clerk, she didn’t know … finally one said, “Well, maybe you should give it more time and call us back in another day or two. And I said, “Well, under normal circumstances, that’s probably reasonable, but considering we have someone illegally incarcerated, every additional minute is worth taking into account and trying to get to the bottom of what’s going on. So can you help me find the person who knows?” She transferred me to someone’s voicemail.
Leslie Dutton: And you’ve not heard back from that person?
Leslie Dutton: Apparently, this isn’t the first time documents have been missing. Share with us a couple of examples of what could be serious malfeasance of the court.
Mardi Mason: Well, it was an order for him to show cause why he shouldn’t be disbarred from practicing before the district court. So … it was extremely important. I found it by luck when I was doing research through the PACER system. The problem was, they … not only did he not get it, it’s not like it was misdirected, they never even served it. There is no Proof of Service connected to that document. On top of that, once Richard found out about it and we prepared a response, this is now one of the missing documents.
Mardi Mason: Then, they issued an order disbarring him. He filed a response to that … that is another missing document.
Leslie Dutton: We asked her if in her professional opinion did she think that this is a purposeful action on the part of the court to inhibit Mr. Fine’s ability to defend himself?
Mardi Mason: It’s making it nearly impossible. Between the documents being missing, the fact that he was denied a way to even write out his documents for the longest time, the fact that he was denied access … er, the press was denied access to him … It’s happened far too many times for it all to be accidental. This is the third case … not the third document, but the third case in which documents that have been filed have not shown up on the docket. And in one other instance, the missing document was used to justify striking one of his pleadings for failure to follow a certain rule … except that he had and they knew it, but it was the only way to justify denying his habeas corpus petition. So … the rules don’t provide for playing “hide and seek” with legal documents. Which is one reason we provide the documents ourselves on the website, so at least the public can see what they contain and know what’s going on and know Richard’s side of the story.
Leslie Dutton: Now you used the term “hide and seek” … play “hide and seek” with the documents. Could you tell me, are there court rules about the handling of documents, official documents, that would prohibit this “hide and seek” strategy?
Mardi Mason: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule Number 27, is pretty straightforward in terms of the clerks are required to accept and file and publish pretty much everything that is submitted to the court other than certain pre-agreed sealed documents … you know, extraordinary things like that. So there is no legitimate reason why these documents aren’t appearing in these cases.
Leslie Dutton: And the “hide and seek” that the court is playing with the legal documents have a decidedly negative effect on the 70-year-old Mr. Fine.
Leslie Dutton: Well, this morning I checked the docket and Mr. Fine’s motion for emergency release, based on the brief that he’d prepared for the appeal, is now listed as having been posted on August 31st. But it didn’t appear on the docket until today, September 3rd. Has that in any way impeded his ability or their consideration?
Mardi Mason: Considering we understand that some of the judges meet on Mondays to consider such motions, yes, they cost him another week in jail. This is the same case that I called in about yesterday where I got transferred to five different clerks looking for what happened to this motion. So, now I guess now it has appeared after I questioned so many people about it yesterday.
Leslie Dutton: So phone calls, public scrutiny and pressure is having some effect on the questionable behavior of the court. To document the inconsistent behavior, Mardi Mason now uses her computer to take screenshots of PACER, the official website of the court so she can accumulate proof of the irregularities.
Mardi Mason: Well, I have learned to make copies of the PACER dockets online every time I go and so I can provide a copy of the screenshot I took yesterday … and it wasn’t there then.
Leslie Dutton: So you have a screenshot of all the dockets for every day.
Mardi Mason: Every day that I visit a particular case. I’ve just learned that things come and go, so I capture a screenshot just to be able to prove something like this … it’s not the way you’re trying to make it look.
Leslie Dutton: Why would the court not want certain documents to appear on the docket?
Mardi Mason: In this case, those documents show rampant judicial corruption.
Leslie Dutton: Mr. Fine agrees. He talked to us on the phone from solitary confinement in jail and explained exactly how and why the dockets are being manipulated by the court.
Richard Fine: We know that the documents went to the judges … because the clerk got them and first marked the document “received” instead of marking the document “filed”. And the person that makes the decision ultimately as to whether the document is filed or received is not really the clerk. It’s the judge.
Richard Fine: So the clerk has to take the document in. Then the document goes up to the judge and the judge is going to decide if that document’s going to be filed or if it’s not going to be filed. So the ultimate decision is with the judge.
Mardi Mason: I do know the Administrative Office of the Courts … I researched and found out last night … this entity is what ultimately presides over these computer systems. So they probably would be … they work in conjunction with a national judicial commission, so they would be who I would approach for answers on how to address this kind of highly suspicious activity by a senior appellate court. … The bottom line is that every relevant Supreme Court precedent case supports Richard Fine in holding that, under the circumstances, Judge Yaffe was obliged to recuse himself. It’s absolutely crystal clear. There are no holdings which oppose that position, and that means that Judge Yaffe has no legal leg to stand on.
Leslie Dutton: Wow. This is just incredible. Whoever dreamed that this is going on in our court system.
Mardi Mason: I didn’t, and it’s still hard for me to accept that you can’t trust the basic things to have any integrity. I’ve had other people make comments to me about problems with the dockets and I kind of didn’t really listen because it just didn’t permeate my brain that that was even remotely possible. And yet I have seen now, In the past four months I’ve been working on this, so many different examples. And they all have to do with critical documents concerning Richard’s case.
AG Jerry Brown: Did Governor & Legislature Wipe Away The Penal Code for Judges & Government Officials? .......... SBX 2 11 The Culprit?
Los Angeles, CA The Full Disclosure Network has been investigating California Senate Bill SBX2 11 that was enacted into law on February 20, 2009 and became part of Government Code Sections 68220-222 on May 21, 2009. This controversial bill signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, was intended to legalize "Double Benefits" for Judges by the county governments.
There was no debate or public scrutiny of the bill prior to the vote. These county payments to Judges were ruled illegal in an appellate court decision in a case brought by the Judicial Watch organization in Sturgeon v. County of Los Angeles that held the Judges who are State employees were not entitled to "double benefits" from the county due to a Constitutional Provision that Judges Salaries and benefits are to be set by the legislature and cannot be delegated.
WHY MISSING PARAGAPHS ON CRIMINAL IMMUNITY?
Most notably three important paragraphs in SBX2 11 were missing from Government Code Sections 68220, 68221,68222. These paragraphs included the most critical and controversial part of the bill, being that California Judges and county government officials were given retroactive immunity from criminal prosecution and civil liability for crimes committed prior to May 21, 2009. What the bill doesn't say is what happens to the crimes committed after May 21st 2009? Is criminal behavior for government officials now legal?
CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR NOW LEGAL FOR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS?
"This bill would provide that no governmental entity, or officer or employee of a governmental entity, shall incur any liability or be subject to prosecution or disciplinary action because of benefits provided to a judge under the official action of a governmental entity prior to the effective date of the bill on the ground that those benefits were not authorized under law. "
MISSING PARAGRAPHS = CONFUSION FOR COURT & COUNTY?
Why were these paragraphs missing? What impact does this have on conferring immunity for past crimes and future crimes? On September 9, 2009 Full Disclosure began to seek answers from the author of Senate SBX2 11 Senate Pro-Tem Darrell Steinberg, the California Judicial Council who apparently wrote the bill, and California Attorney General Jerry Brown whose job it is to prosecute criminal acts of public officials.
So far we have received answers to our questions from Senator Steinberg's spokesman, Jim Evans. We received a brief note from the Judicial Council Legislative staff basically concurring with Steinberg's office and NO response from the Attorney General, the Department of Justice or their Press Office. We sent a copy of our request to the Attorney General's "Opinion" supervisor Susan Lee, who wrote "we do not provide opinions to the public, only to elected officials".
1) Does the legislature have the authority to enact legislation that purports to preclude the commission from disciplining California superior court judges for authorizing supplemental compensation to be paid to themselves from public funds and/or receiving that supplemental compensation, on the ground that such benefits were or are not authorized by law?
2) Does section 2 of SB(x2) 11 (a) simply identify which judges are permitted as of the effective date of SB 11 to continue receiving supplemental compensation from the effective date forward, on the terms and conditions in effect on July 1, 2008, or (b) retroactively authorize all or some portion of supplemental compensation provided by counties to judges, or to judges by the judges themselves, so long as it was being provided as of July 1, 2008?
3) Has the Legislature adequately prescribed the supplemental compensation purportedly authorized by SB(x2) 11?
WHY NO ATTORNEY GENERAL OPINION?
Full Disclosure Network asked Senator Pro-Tem Steinberg's Spokesman Jim Evans to clarify some points regarding SBX2 11. Here are all the questions and answers (in a PDF file format) posed concerning SBX2 11. Basically, we were told the Senator (author) did not request an Attorney General opinion and when asked if they would seek one, the answer was "no" it is not necessary. Below is one of the many questions we asked about the retroactive criminal immunity.
Is there any immunity covering present payments(to Judges by counties) of supplemental benefits which occur under the first paragraph (Government Code Section 68220) commencing as of May 21, 2009, the effective date of SBX2 11? I have read that the immunity to be retroactive only and not applying to the present benefits because of the use of the words "prior to" the enactment date.
A complaint was filed with California Attorney General Jerry Brown's office on September 14, 2009 by former Anti-Trust Attorney Richard I. Fine is seeking prosecution of Superior Court Judges and government officials who have participated in the receipt of illegal payments from public funds, which he estimates at approximately $300 million, without disclosure while sitting on cases involving County government. Mr. Fine, who has been sitting in solitary coercive confinement in the L. A . County Central Men's Jail, prepared the complaint using the top of his bunk bed as a desk, citing the Penal Codes from memory. After 45 years as a practicing attorney with the Department of Justice in Washington D.C. and private practice, he holds a Ph.D. in International Law.
Fine was sentenced indefinitely for Civil Contempt of Court by Judge David Yaffe, whom he alleges testified in court on December 22, 2008 that he had received the illegal "benefits" (payments) from the County and had failed to disclose to litigants in Court and on his Economic Disclosure Form 700. Mr. Fine had attempted to disqualify Judge Yaffee from the case before him (Marina Strand Colony II Homeowners Association v. County of Los Angeles.) Fine has appealed for release from jail, all the way up to the U S Ninth Circuit Court, where a hearing is expected to be scheduled; however, there is no indication it may be soon.
http://www.fulldisclosure.net/Programs/541.php (28:30 min) "L A Times Misses The Mark"
This is a case where L A Superior court Judge David P. Yaffe admitted taking payments from L A County, which was a party to the case before him. Senate Bill SBX2 11, enacted February 20, 2009. confirmed that the L A County payments to Judge Yaffe are criminal acts. Judge Yaffe ordered Fine (me) to pay money to L.A. County and its co-applicant for an Environmental Impact Report (EIR). He held me in contempt when I challenged his authority to do so.
The decision of Justices Tashima and N.R. Smith to deny my unopposed motion to set me free pending the decisions on the appeal is both outrageous and against the recent precedents in similar motions in the Ninth Circuit. Not only are they keeping me incarcerated during the course of the appeal they have foreclosed my right to ask the other Justices of the Ninth Circuit to overturn them. They have removed the right to have their decision questioned and reviewed by “objective” decision makers. One has to question the underlying reasons for the removal of this right.
In the recent case of Orange County Sheriff Carona, who was convicted of a crime, the Ninth Circuit granted his unopposed motion to keep him free from incarceration pending the appeal from his conviction which was based, as was my motion, that we would win on appeal.
In my case, which is not a criminal case, my incarceration exists only while the case to decide if Judge Yaffe should have recused himself is pending. It is Judge Yaffe who committed the crime, not me. However, I am the one who is incarcerated, not Judge Yaffe.
I have challenged the right of Judge Yaffe to preside in the case through a Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. My petition was not contested. U S Supreme Court case law supports my position on the petition and in the appeal. See the case of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., 556 US – (2009 556 US – (2009) decided June 8, 2009 and cases cited therein.
Here there is something terribly wrong. I have been incarcerated for six and a half months, since March 4, 2009. No one has opposed my motion to be set free by either the District Court nor the Ninth Circuit. No one has opposed my Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus or the grounds therein. Judge Yaffe has taken criminal payments from L. A. County and then judged his own actions in violation of due process as set forth in U.S. Supreme Court Cases.
The Rule of Law has died at the hands of Justices Tashima and Smith. Hopefully it shall be revived by other Justices in the Ninth Circuit who decide the appeal.
The video features Fred Sottile and Full Disclosure Host Leslie Dutton a with a description of how Richard Fine is representing himself "In Pro Per" writing the court documents using legal codes from memory in his jail cell. The difficult circumstances of this legal battle is described vividly by Sottile who sees the Judicial Corruption as a threat to the entire country.
The obstacles encountered by the volunteers for Richard I Fine are documented in a series of video news reports produced by the Full Disclosure Network. The second segment in the series is to be release next week. Many of the volunteers helping Richard Fine have had personal encounters with the flawed Court process and were motivated to come forward due to the issues involved in his case.
NEXT WEEK'S EPISODE........."Missing Documents & Federal Court Rules"
Criminal Immunity For California Judges & Government Officials ?
Hon. Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Attached is a copy of the California Appellate Court decision People v. Sperl(1976) 54 . Cal.App.3d 43; and we are asking for the Attorney General's determination (opinion) as to whether or not the embezzlement of public funds as described in this case under Pen. Code, § 424 and any other sections of the penal code are enforceable in the circumstances described in SBX2 11 in Sections 5,6,7 regarding government officials and California Judges.
Specifically we need to know whether the adoption of the statute (Senate Bill SBX2 11), without being placed in the government code is sufficient to confer immunity on government officials and California Judges particularly for payments made after July 1, 2008 where immunity may not necessarily apply.
those benefits were not authorized under law. "
Full Disclosure Network contacted the Office of Senator Daryl Steinberg, sponsor of Senate Bill SBX2 11 to determine if the missing sections that address immunity for judges and government officials is located elsewhere in the Code and were informed that those sections were not codified and therefore not necessary to have been included in the California Codes.
Los Angeles, CA On Wednesday, September 2, 2009 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Commissioner Peter L. Shaw issued a Stay Order in the Disbarment case of Richard I Fine (No. 09-80130) pending his appeal of the U. S. District Court denial of his petition for a Writ a Habeas Corpus. The Order cited a "significant overlap between the discipline case and the issues raised by respondent's pending habeas petition Fine v. Sheriff of Los Angeles County (No. 09-56073)".
This New twist provides promising in the ten year ongoing saga of beleaguered Anti-Trust Attorney Richard I Fine who has been jailed for contempt of court indefinitely. Fine was jailed by L A Superior Court Judge David Yaffe on March 4, 2009 for refusing to comply with a court order which Fine claims was an illegal order imposed by a Judge who was receiving illegal payments from in interested party in the case before him. At his March 4, 2009 Superior Court sentencing hearing, (No. 109420) Mr. Fine attempted to disqualify Judge David Yaffe from sitting on the case, noting he had been receiving payments from L. A. County, an interested party in the case (Marina Strand Colony Homeowners Assn. vs. County of L.A.).
"This is highly significant because the issues in the disbarment and the issues in the Writ are identical. The California Supreme Court disbarred me because I brought federal civil rights cases against the judges because they were taking illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the county. "
"The underlying issue is whether the Judges were denying people due process because they were taking money from the county. And, we know that the money they were taking from the county was unconstitutional under the Sturgeon case and it was criminal under Senate Bill SBX2 11 and we know those actions were a denial of due process of under the various U S Supreme court cases from 1927 through 2009."
"So in the end when the 9th Circuit will decide that it was a denial of due process for Judge Yaffe to have received illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the county, a party to the case. This decision will control the disbarment proceeding. "
"There is further significance because four of the six California Supreme Court Justices who refused to review the Disbarment case and thereby caused the disbarment also had received illegal, criminal and unconstitutional payments from the counties and the other two Supreme Court Justice are members of Judicial Council who wrote the Senate Bill SBX2 11. (Retroactive Judicial Immunity from Criminal and Liability Prosecution) "These justices should have recused themselves from the disbarment case and by not doing so denied me due process under the US Supreme Court’s cases."
August 12, 2009: Ninth Circuit Court Justice Andrew J. Kleinfeld restores Richard I Fine's rights to appeal the U S District Court order denying Certificate of Appealablity "with prejudice" on the issue of whether or not the Trial Court Judge David Yaffe should have recused himself.
August 31st, 2009: Richard I Fine filed an opening brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal raised the issue of having been denied due process by L A Superior Court Judge David Yaffe who had refused to recuse himself from the case after having received illegal payments from a party involved in the case and that he himself was a party involved in the contempt case.

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