Gary Stanley Bennett’s case is active and should neither be archived nor tagged as disposed, and I wrote and asked Brevard County Clerk Mitch Needelman to make corrections last week.
There are hundreds of public servants that believe that every victim of discredited dog handler John Preston’s perjuries is disposable, and are endeavoring towards their having justice available only in the afterlife. They include officers, prosecutors, D.A.’s, S.A.’s, judges, federal agents, senators, representatives, governors, A.G.’s, presidents.
And Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Atwater, per the two-year-old email below. Of course, then-Senate President Atwater didn’t respond. Not all of the Floridians that public servants feel are disposable are incarcerated. Chances are you won’t know how little public servants think you’re worth until you ask for justice, or safety or some other such nonsense.
Date: May 29, 2009 3:52:08 AM EDT
To: jeff@senatorjeff.com
Subject: Formal Response Requested – FBI ignored requests to investigate Brevard County
Dear Senator Atwater:
Please formally respond to an issue I’ve raised with you before. I’d like to know what you intend to do about John Preston’s reported three-score appearances as a bogus expert in Brevard felony trials that haven’t been addressed; ABC’s “20/20” discredited Preston in 1984, Wilton Dedge’s and William Dillon’s DNA exonerations proved that any convictions Preston was involved in were likely wrongful.
In 2006, I began asking the FBI to adhere to their mandate to investigate public corruption and get to the bottom of Brevard/Seminole miscreant behaviors. It would have been logical and ethical for you to have made the same request of the FBI, using the influence of your family name. An AP article printed in USA Today, “Fla. Senate President has politics in his blood,” reported that your father is a retired FBI agent and former Police Chief.
Brevard Sheriff Jack Parker’s reelection website “Endorsements” page lists 22 former federal agents, including former FBI agents Pedro Rubio and Ernest Haridopolos. The Brevard/Seminole Public Defender requested disclosure of names of others that Preston testified against; to my knowledge, Sheriff Parker has not cooperated.
Indian River County Sheriff Loar stated that he believes that Ernest Haridopolos is Sen. Mike Haridopolos’ father. You apparently are rather close to Sen. Haridopolos; the AP article I referenced reported that you two were once roommates. Sen. Haridopolos ignored my request to verify his relationship to Ernest; Rep. Rubio has my e-mail address blocked, apparently tiring of me asking for legislation to address the failures of our executive and judicial branches.
To refresh your memory, I’d asked each of you to draft a bill to make it incumbent upon Florida’s Governor to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate any one county in which two convictions were upset for the identical untenable trial tactic. All three of you ignored the request, without suggesting an alternative solution.
You want to be Florida’s Chief Financial Officer. There are innumerable, obvious budgetary excesses created by wrongful convictions. Floridians paid to be kept safe from harmless Dedge and Dillon for 49 years. We paid Dedge $2M in exoneration compensation; Dillon is due $1.3M although incarcerated five years longer. Dillon will likely have to fight for compensation, like Alan Crozter, wasting the time of state attorneys, legislators and judges – more of Floridians money. And there may be 58 or more other harmless Brevard men that Floridians are paying to be kept safe from that they will cause taxpayers all the same costs.
When Brevard convicted the wrong men using Preston, two criminals typically walked free through use of coached jailhouse informants, at great cost to Florida law enforcement, judges, jails, prisons and the rest of the system. Clarence Zacke testified against Dedge (and Gerald Stano, who was executed). Roger Dale Chapman testified against Dillon. James E. Gilmore had testified against Juan Ramos, first in the Brevard/Seminole district to get out from under Preston’s perjuries in 1987; Ramos hasn’t been compensated for his five harrowing years on death row.
Aside from continuing to press the DOJ and Congress to address the FBI’s disinterest in their mandates, I’m using a blog to increase public awareness of wrongful convictions in hopes that Floridians will support the Innocence Project of Florida with their dollars and use their votes at the polls against anyone – in either party – that believes there’s such a thing as a disposable Floridian, and that innocence has an expiration date.
Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Susan Chandler
Wobbly Warrior's Blog 