Tommy’s torment – puny Park Avenue prowess

The pdf of Winter Park Patrolman Jimmy Yawn’s deposition excerpt is available upon request, and this portion of the questions and answers confirms that a crime scene photo of Charlie Mays’ rearranged body and clothing was staged after Yawn left.

Q.  Where were his [Mays’] pants?
A.  Pardon?
Q.  Where were his pants?
A.  Where were his pants?
Q.  Yes, sir.
A.  They were on him.
Q.  In a normal manner?
A.  As far as I’m concerned.
Q.  Are they just like I have my pants on, up around my waist?
A.  To the best of my knowledge.

If a homosexual act was committed on Mays’ corpse, as prosecutors maintain, it was obviously committed by one of the officers remaining on the scene after Yawn left. It’s more than a little suspicious that attorney John Houston Pope didn’t make sure that this bit of commonsense got published, along with all the other bits of commonsense that indicate that Tommy was framed 35 years ago.

From: Susan Chandler
Date: August 25, 2011 4:46:40 PM EDT
To: jhpope@ebglaw.com
Cc: lapeter@sptimes.com, *TIGTA Investigations Complaints Unit <complaints>, irsob@do.treas.gov, “Alan J. Friedman” <afriedman>, Rick.Scott@eog.myflorida.com, president@flabar.org, ethicsearch@americanbar.org, acolarossi@tribune.com, mreed@floridatoday.com, FL_GOV Inspector General <cig>, wcvose@sa09.org, kharrison@crowell.com, Tampa Division <tampa.division>, ASKDOJ <askdoj></askdoj></tampa.division></cig></afriedman></complaints>
Subject: Your representation of William “Tommy” Zeigler  [TIGTA complaint number 55-1106-0136-C]

John Houston Pope, Esquire
Epstein, Becker and Green, P.C.
250 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10177-1211

Dear Mr. Pope,

I am writing in regards to your representation of William “Tommy” Zeigler, a gentleman wrongfully on Florida’s death row for 35 years.

After viewing the Orange County Clerk of Courts website and noting that you filed no objection to the prosecution’s further delaying Tommy’s two-year-old appeal, I visited your firm’s website and your bio, finding your 20 years of representing Tommy condensed to a two-sentence afterthought on your bio, and nothing on the site to suggest that Tommy was in experienced (or caring) hands.

Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton’s abrupt retirement after the Casey Anthony trial was six weeks prior to Tommy’s scheduled August 19th hearing date, not six days. Allowing a prosecutor’s office with an extensive history of misrepresenting, tampering, concealing and fabricating evidence and covering up wrongful convictions – with media cooperation – additional time to do more of the same is not a professional courtesy, it is an unprofessional capitulation to corruption that defrauds and endangers the public.  It is no state secret that Orange County recommended dog handler John Preston to Brevard County and had used Preston with FBI participation in convicting Linroy Bottoson, who was executed 19 years after an Ohio federal court found Preston a charlatan and a perjurer in upsetting Dale Sutton’s conviction, which also involved federal agents.

Your New York City representation of Tommy is as mystifying to me as D.C.’s Crowell and Moring’s representation of Brevard’s Crosley Green was prior to my learning that the Bar had secured their services despite the firm’s well-defined professional disinterest in death row defenses.  It would not surprise me to find that your representation of Tommy had the same basis … while the Bar pretends to equally protect the public and its members so as to evade federal tax obligations, it not only allows prosecutorial and supervisory misconduct to become serial and deadly through failing to punish it as federal case law requires, it abets prosecutorial and supervisory misconduct, as it did in “helping” Crosley.

However you came to represent Tommy, sir, unless 250 Park Avenue is the pinnacle of perniciousness rather than success, today is the appropriate day for Epstein, Becker and Green to decide to put everything its got behind getting Tommy freed – NOW.  Dozens of other innocents’ freedoms hinge upon exposing Orange County for the cesspool that it is, including those being prosecuted by Orange via tainted transfer, like Brevard’s Gary Stanley Bennett, whose two-year-old appeal to get out from under Preston’s perjuries – blighted by an apparent repeat of Brevard/Preston evidence tampering (preceded by William Dillon’s) – has also been unduly delayed by Ashton quitting.

I look forward to seeing hard evidence that you will henceforth take your pro bono responsibilities to Tommy seriously.  Addressing the vile, false accusation that Tommy committed a homosexual act on a corpse would be a good start.  Winter Garden Patrolman Jimmy Yawn’s deposition disproving the depraved assertion is no state secret, either, and as “citizen advocate” Ray McEachern managed to get the St. Petersburg Times‘ attention, certainly you can, too.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Susan Chandler

“Unlikely advocate wants to free death row inmate” – Leonora LaPeter Anton, St. Petersburg Times 1/9/11
http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article1143829.ece

Latest YouTube video posted by FreeTommyZ advocates
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fBjIxdQ0QM 

FreeTommyZ site
http://www.freetommyz.com

Phillip Finch’s book, Fatal Flaw, exonerating Tommy prior to confirming DNA tests (now free, given Finch’s continuing concern for Tommy)
http://phillipfinch.com/fatalflaw/ 

Former Orange County Undersheriff Leigh McEachern’s book, The Appearance of Justice
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=stripbooks&field-keywords=Leigh+McEachern&x=0&y=0

Your bio
http://www.ebglaw.com/showbio.aspx?Show=2572

My blog
http://www.wobblywarrior.wordpress.com

Related excerpts from Winter Park Patrolman Jimmy Yawn’s deposition (pdf)