Quarterly psych tests required of prosecutor

If even half the scuttle-butt that I have heard of Lebanon County district attorney David Arnold, Jr. is true, then this society should really consider some sort of routine and regular ethics examination for positions like district attorney. Now, I know that by the time I am done with this article, haters, bullies, trolls are going to suggest that I am not one to criticize. But before that happens, the rest of the audience needs to be reminded that there is no evidence of any of their criticisms of me--especially not when it pertains to ethics. What they will cite as "evidence" truly amounts to corrupt law enforcement officials, like Arnold himself, abusing the powers of their office to accomplish a myriad of un-ethical goals, like silencing whistle blowers to protect their own political allies. If any one would like to read the transcripts that show that no evidence exists, just ask. And, even if you want to believe their BS about me, it doesn't make Arnold's bad behavior "good." Its still unethical.

Now, on to Arnold. The clear theme running through the "gossip" that I have heard indicates that Arnold is a man with very poor judgment--so poor as to question allowing him to hold any public office. 

1. While running for his first public office, his own domestic-violence issues were down played into vapor in a manner that enabled him to give the false appearance that he could and would investigate or prosecute domestic violence cases in an appropriate and unbiased manner. It also enabled him, in a more recent election where his former assistant was running for a public office, to appear so "clean" on the issue that he could support his friend's campaign by smearing his opponent with domestic violence accusations that his office helped the media (and the opposing candidate's ex) to spread among the voting public.  To secretly help him on this issue--you know, to make it look like he could properly handle domestic violence cases, as soon as taking office, he employed friends and business partners in the victim witness co-coordinators office. 

2. Then there are the constant rumors about his sexual activities with his female staff, and about some of these activities occurring in a county office. If these are true, the un-ethicality of the pattern of conduct speaks for itself as being reflective of a person not fit for public office:

a. First, the rumors suggest that he uses the public work space as his breeding grounds. The rumors consistently describe that he has had repeated sexual affairs with a line of women colleagues and even his own staff. His second wife worked as a LebCo juvenile probation officer at the time that Arnold worked in the public defenders office (and when he was married to his first wife, I assume). That second marriage took place pretty darn quickly after the first one tanked.  These are facts. Also, he is rumored to have bedded a female attorney on his staff who subsequently quit, and to have bedded another-- who was relatively recently confronted by his second wife.

b. Second, the rumors suggest that he rather openly creates and fosters an office culture where sexual activity is allowed, enabled, and even rewarded in county offices. One example is demonstrated by the rumor that his second wife even caught him being unfaithful in either his office or in his assistant district attorney's office. Then there is the well-known fact that he shielded a male colleague from investigation and prosecution for having sex with...ah, was it a confidential informant?, in the property/evidence locker? or some government space like that. He rewarded his second wife by helping to "convert" her public job as a juvenile probation officer to a private job with a lucrative county contract and a constant--and increasing, stream of juveniles that HE prosecutes.

c. Third, his rumored activities appear to be highly discriminatory--against men and against women in his office, albeit for differing reasons. At a minimum, even the rumors of his sexual escapades must create a highly charged and inefficient workplace environment. One rumor is that one of his affairs led to a "pregnancy scare"--and with a married staff member at that. I suggest that could be why one of his business partner-staff member quit on him, especially if the two women were friends. More recent rumors describe how a sexual relationship with another of his female attorneys has led to his second wife confronting the mistress, and led to the failure of his second marriage. And how would this make any of the males in his staff feel, especially if a relationship with the "boss" is used like a reward system in the office?

3. And then there are the non-rumors--the facts. 

a. One fact is Arnold's exceptionally conflict-laden act of keeping a judge's wife on his payroll where he continues to prosecute cases in front of that judge--even though the president judge told the public that the judge would be removed from hearing criminal cases. Arnold also lets his assistant district attorneys "moonlight" in family law cases that that judge hears. The conflict is so blatant that all a family law case participant has to do his file a one page objection simply saying "the conflict inherent in having a assistant district attorney serve in this family law case is obvious and egregious, and so the lawyer must be removed immediately." I have never seen it fought--or fail, yet. (BTW, if you know of a family law case that was assigned an assistant district attorney, please let me know the case number and party names.)

b. Another fact evidencing his un-fitness for office is that he lied about his finances in his ethics disclosures and the only thing that shields him from being held accountable for his lying is that the ethics entity wants to impose a fictional "statute of limitations" on a process which has no such limitation.

c. Oh, and another fact--he wrongfully convicts people that he knows are innocent, and abuses the powers of his office to silence people he considers political threats.

As I wrap this up, I want to remind the audience that his alleged mistresses are also public persona who could have been named herein. And to those public officials: You're welcome for the discretion. But you should really come to grips with the idea that the county's citizens already have your names, so your legacy is cast and your children are already at risk of learning any "secrets" from a person and at a time completely out of your control. I suggest that we would all be better off if parents taught their children the principle of "owning your own shit". "Mommy had her sexual needs met by her boss, but that doesn't mean that she loves you or daddy any less." or "Daddy had his sexual needs met by his female staff, and sometimes, while at work in the office, but that doesn't mean that he loves you any less." 

But it also doesn't mean that it makes him fit for office.

The reason why even small governments need checks and balances

Click on the link below:


Beloved Financial Secretary Steals 53 Million from Small City

Slapping a Board

So my new assignment has me interviewing attorneys, which has been exceptionally enlightening. Let me tell you briefly about one thing that I learned so far in this process.

I learned that under Pennsylvania law, Shareholders can directly sue the corporation. Minority Shareholders, even....can sue the corporation for not providing access to its financial information (hmm--I wonder if not telling the shareholders about government investigations of its tax reporting counts here), for allowing and engaging in self-dealing (you know, the kind where the Board annually issues its LARGEST expense contract to a voting officer of the Board--without a written contract or even a bid), and/or for destroying the value of the shareholder's investment.

Yep, you see that correctly: MINORITY SHAREHOLDERS CAN DIRECTLY SUE THE CORPORATION.

And the remedies can range from judicial assignment of an entity to "supervise" the Board/Corporation or even to dissolution of the corporation. Most PA cases, however, end in buyout of the shareholder's investment.

You know what this means don't you? This means that a single shareholder in the PA Chautauqua corporation can directly sue that pitiful excuse of an HOA.

Just fucking fascinating, don't you think?

Oh, now, I know that the grand-poopah solicitor will likely try to reassure you that it can't or won't happen. But I would not get all greasy-eyed yet. Make sure he tells you that the case law supports that a minority shareholder holding less than 5% of shares can directly sue the corporation, and that the legislature intended the applicable definitions to be determined on a case-by-case basis (like pornography--the court will know it when it sees it). god forbid that that day comes when your solicitor has to backtrack and then explain how it is indeed possible for one shareholder's suit to survive to trial...and win.

Now see, if a Board doesn't like that a shareholder is asking you to show him the financial information that he needs to determine the value of his investment--or to determine the value of the buyer-of-his-investment's investment, or if you don't like that a shareholder asks for this information or that she asks for you--Board, to do your fucking fiduciary duties, without a smile on her face, well then you need to take some time to come to grips with yourself and put those big, big, big girl and boy pants on and either bow out, or act like the observant christians that you profess to be--or at least act like a person that cares about the minority shareholders and their investments.

That whole thing about getting more with honey goes both ways...except, of course, when the honey is forced up the shareholder's ass.

Little bit of Lebanon down in Kyle

Looks like Lebanon County DA and Mount Gretna aren't the only government entities in the habit of abusing the government's powers of criminal prosecution to silence whistleblowers. Down in Texas, a police chief fathered a son with a doctor's wife and then the chief used the resources and powers of his office to organize a campaign of harassment against the doctor. That campaign included a trumped up charge of domestic violence against the doctor, for which he pleaded to a lesser charge. The doctor has now sued the town's employing the police chief, and that event allows the doctor to collect evidence from the towns and their departments and officials.

This abuse of power sounds excruciatingly familiar. In late 2007, I began researching the finances of the Borough of Mount Gretna by reading budget documents and financial reports, and by interviewing self-appointed "Queen of all things Gretna" and Lebanon County Republican Party "Boss" Kathleen Snavely. Snavely also has the ear of Republican-groomed county district attorney, David Arnold. Not long after his bankruptcy and failed marriage (which included confirmed allegations of violence that he perpetrated against his then-wife), local state politician Brightbill apparently handpicked Arnold to run against the current DA, who was allegedly not cow-towing enough to the Republican entrenchment.

Brightbill lost his re-election, but Arnold won, and has expressed a painful amount of deference to "his" local party ever since. Immediately upon taking office, Arnold also proceeded to get the county judiciary in his pocket by hiring a local judge's wife (Ann Kline) as a prosecutor, and proceeded to get partners in his campaign-finance real estate investment business (ASH Investments) on the county payroll as well. (Note that he failed to properly disclose his financial dealings in his ethics statements that he filed during those years) It also apparently didn't take him long to find other uses for his office furniture, as allegations of romantic trysts and infidelities percolated forth. And, he and his new wife, a county probation officer in charge of state/grant-funded juvenile probation programs, implemented a strategy that made her work "private" and paid through a lucrative services contract with the county (in addition to the grants that Arnold obtained from the State).

But, now back to late 2007, where my research efforts were open and obvious. After having several conversations with Snavely about the political mechanisms of Mount Gretna, Snavely "notified" her peeps about my queries and so at a January 2008 staff meeting, Arnold instructed his staff to strategize a path towards charging me (and my partner) with a crime.  Arnold's real estate business partners and County employees, Emily Scipioni and Tammy Hartman-Hankins routinely attended these meetings, and on that day, one of them left the meeting and repeated, nearly verbatim, Arnold's instructions to a number of people outside that meeting. But none of that ever reached me for quite some time...years, really, until certain members of his staff could brook no more of his "leadership" and left his employ.

By February of 2008, the research revealed some very disturbing things. One disturbing thing I learned is that the Borough consistently under-reported $250,000 to $300,000 a year to the public and that same amount of money could not be accounted for.  The second was that the 87 acre Borough--which has no public works infrastructure, had a full-time public works crew of 4 (at least) whom hardly ever could be witnessed performing work within the Borough. Yet, at the end of each pay period, each staff member submitted to the Borough a timesheet upon which that staff member stated that they performed 40 hours (or more!) of work for the residents of the Borough of Mount Gretna. Well, that simply was not happening. So, I reported the findings to the next person in the "chain of command", so to speak, and that was the local district attorney, whose response I knew would be to have to forward the information to a "non-conflicted" law enforcement/investigative entity--so, either the state police or the state attorney general. Imagine the confusion my innocence blossomed when his response--his immediate response, was that he was "not going to investigate that...that's never going to happen."

So, I started to put my research online in a blog, this blog, and within weeks, my partner and I were being charged with crimes that no evidence of would ever be submitted for and for which three of the persons I reported would provide known false testimony at my trial. Also, the judge (Samuel Kline) whose household was regularly receiving a paycheck from the prosecutor's office (and who was supposed to be recused from hearing criminal cases because of this) pulled our case and proceeded to "lose" recordings, to prohibit me from attending proceedings, and refused to let out the facts that the three Borough "character" witness' had been previously accused by me of financial improprieties, that a local news reporter published news stories (and meeting minutes existed) that showed the falsity of their testimony, and that the property upon which the alleged criminal activity took place was actually maintained by one of the witnesses--the public works director, William Care.

In the middle of the trial, I was threatened with abandonment by my attorney (Robert Keys) and to be jailed if I took the stand. My attorney also failed to notify me of the three Borough witnesses, and recommended, as my partner's attorney, a "friend" of his (Christopher Coyle) who would eventually convey ALL of our confidential information (and nearly all of his work product!) to the prosecutor--a former employee of his whom he would later describe as a "dear, family friend" that he has drinks with two or three times a week and visits regularly at his home, who would forge my partner's signature on a continuance request that neither of us knew of or would have approved of but which the prosecutor needed), who would later lie to the lawyer's conduct board by saying that he did actually get my partner's signature when in fact, he did not),  and who, we would later find out, had a long-standing services contract with the local judges. Both attorneys-and only those two attorneys, had these contracts.

The "complainant" (Scott Yoder)  had stalked us at our home for days, and, as we found out soon thereafter, was a "police officer" whom Snavely admits that she has known since he was a toddler, and who had recently, while off-duty, threatened to shoot a woman and her family because he didn't like the way she parked her car. (He was charged and convicted for that bad conduct.) The "responding" local police officer testified at trial that he had no evidence--and conducted no investigation, that in any way linked the alleged criminal activity to either myself or to my partner. Interestingly enough, the day that led to the trumped-up charges started with Yoder stalking us at our house and with him trespassing on our property and refusing to leave and threatening us after I told him to get off our property. (After seeing him lag by slowly and peering up at our house at least four times within one hour, I then witnessed him on our porch attempting to get into our home.)

Interestingly enough, since my publication of these financial issues, the Borough's budget that they publish to us, the public, has tripled with no real justification or explanation except that they were told to "report" things differently. They also admit that the auditors have made some critical comments to them. I'll take that. I'll take that as a corrupt organization's admission that I was correct and that they were doing something wrong. Still, though, the numbers show a gap between what comes in and what goes out, and no one has explained that. Nor has any one admitted, even when asked, who told them what and when  when it comes to auditors comments and the reporting changes demanded.

And, still, Care and his staff submit routine timesheets falsely stating that they worked for the Borough and so they have a right to compensation from the Borough, and to state-run retirement accounts. Where I come from, that's intentional deception--fraud, and the public officials that enable this activity are, at a minimum, committing theft of services.

And I hear that Arnold's has sabotaged his second marriage via extra-marital activities. I wonder what that will do to the "privatized" juvenile services programs that his wife runs and that he feeds juveniles to by prosecuting them and making attending her programs a mandatory part of their "sentence".

Down in Texas, reporters are repeating the police's characterization of the whistleblower-cop that is providing evidence to the civil suit against the town and the chief as "selling insider information". Insider information?!--have they lost their damn minds?! There is no "insider information" in a public entity. This is tragic, that a media outlet will repeat the mischaracterization of government activities in a way that down plays the responsibility of government entities to be transparent and for each citizen to hold government entities accountable for their action/inaction. And its tragic that my neighbors let the media and the government officials get away with these failings.

Its a tragedy because my neighbors' apathy has turned Mount Gretna, and the Chautauqua that mirrors it, into an intellectually and ethically vacuous community.  And the entrenched bullies (and "apathetics") deserve the quagmire of their current putrefaction--low summer programs attendance, persistent and growing"quality of life" complaints by residents, reduced music programs, precipitously-fallen property prices, and what I can only imagine must be the highest murder-rate in any Chautauqua or intellectual/arts community or in any 87 acre municipality.