Pants on fire Pam Bondi: FL’s arguably worst AG ever keeping frame-ups intact

SemDem: Just How AWFUL is Our Attorney General in Rick Scotts Florida?

Bondi is dishonest. She is also, frankly, stupid. She is rightfully considered the worst AG in the country today by many members of the American and Florida bar.

via SemDem: Just How AWFUL is Our Attorney General in Rick Scotts Florida?.

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Like Florida’s Rick Scott, Senate President Gaetz, House Speaker Weatherford, Senator Negron and Representative Larry Lee, Attorney General Bondi doesn’t answer correspondence from constituents.

Bondi feels no obligation to explain abandoning a campaign promise that would have freed additional incarcerated innocents framed by use of charlatan dog handler John Preston, simultaneously ending decades of peripheral corruption … obviously, lawless officers, prosecutors and judges don’t limit their lawlessness to criminal prosecutions.

On March 13, 2012, Scott Maxwell wrote this for the Orlando Sentinel:

When campaigning, she [Bondi] vowed to look into all of the Preston cases — for the sake of those still behind bars, as well as those who served their sentences but still carry the stain of a felony conviction.

No one wanted Bondi or anyone else to push for mass exonerations — just to conduct a thorough and independent investigation into all of the cases in which Preston was involved.

But after Bondi got elected, her interest waned.

To be fair to Bondi, the Orlando Sentinel‘s interest in justice for Preston’s scores of victims waned, too: Their archives indicate that Preston was used on their turf, Florida’s 9th judicial circuit, Orange and Osceola counties, and had they pressed Bondi to investigate, she would have had to investigate the newspaper.

With FBI participation, schizophrenic Linroy Bottoson was convicted in the 9th in 1981, and executed in 2002 … twenty years after Preston had been wholly discredited in Dale Sutton’s Ohio federal case. The Sentinel could have stopped it … their January 30, 1984 article, “Legal foes differ on value of dog’s nose,” made reference to Sutton’s federal exoneration. They could have even covered up that prior knowledge and still stepped up to save Bottoson, as the jailhouse informant had recanted, an actual dog handler had discredited Preston’s perjuries, and the evidence that Bottosons’ nearly lifelong mental illness was clearcut.

Linroy Bottoson

Now there’s more the Orlando Sentinel is obliged to disclose about Preston and their turf. I’ve written a great deal about Gary Bennett’s 18th judicial circuit (Brevard and Seminole counties) over the past few years. When Governor, Charlie Crist signed the initial order transferring prosecution of Bennett’s case from the to the 9th, which Governor Scott renewed.

Of course, the 9th’s use of Preston in Bottoson’s case was an incurable taint on that transfer, but there was yet another, larger taint … the 9th’s make believe 1984 investigation of Preston’s credibility, by order of then-Governor Graham (please see previous post, “God damn Bob Graham”).

Gary Bennett

I haven’t blogged about the standing 18th judicial circuit Preston convictions of Mark Wayne Jones, Frank Berry or Gary Dirk because I’ve never corresponded with any of them, or been in contact with their families. That doesn’t mean they’re not on my mind, or that I haven’t taken any action at all on their behalf. It just means I have extremely limited physical energy.

Mark Wayne Jones

Frank Berry

 

Gary Dirk

I have written about Stephen Epperly’s standing Preston conviction in Virginia (no picture available from VA’s Department of Corrections). Epperly’s case is the only one – to my knowledge – that played upon John Preston’s dangerous mind … Preston made a public statement, printed more than once in the Roanoke Times, that he wasn’t sure whether he followed the right scent trail. As Preston was completely incapable of following a scent trail, it was a clear admission of participating in a bogus prosecution, in which there is prosecutorial misconduct of record.

It was in writing to Lieutenant Andy Wilburn of the Radford City, Virginia Police Department on June 24th that I last mentioned Mark Wayne Jones, Frank Berry and Gary Dirk, along with Gary Bennett. Wilburn had solicited additional information on Stephen Epperly’s case, and I obliged.

Like the Orlando Sentinel, the Roanoke Times wants to forget  their archives, even though there’s little more dangerous than having innocents serve time for stone cold killers.

Please share this post to keep newspapers on the hook for protecting themselves ahead of the public. Thank you.