NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/alt/activism/19807

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-23 | 10.5 KB

Xref: sparky alt.activism:19807 talk.politics.misc:65241 ca.politics:10491
Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc,ca.politics
Path: sparky!uunet!well!pfrankli
From: [e-mail] (Paul Franklin)
Subject: Bobbie Riconosciuto part 7-final
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail]
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 17:13:17 GMT
Lines: 193


Date: December 12, 1992
Place: Public Forum, Louden Nelson Center, Santa Cruz, California.

Dave: Then again, there's a certain point to which you can go,
and you get to a certain area where you're broadcasting this
stuff all over the New York area, airline pilots, people who are
flying out of Kennedy and Newark who were listening to this and
calling up, Paul from Archives (on Audio) was getting calls.
That program was yanked *so* fast, within a week it was gone.
Certain things you can talk about, and then there's a certain
area where if you touch it, that's it, the vaudeville hook comes
out.  If you're a person like Ian Spiro or Mike Riconosciuto or
Gunther Russbacher or the McKee team who has first-hand
information, you're subjected to either deadly retaliation or
severe pressure on your family.  If you're someone like me who
simply works with second hand information but can still get close
enough to the truth, they just block your access, doing whatever
is needed, even if they just have to use some heavy-handed
maneuvering at a non-commercial radio station.

Virginia: Dave, one thing.  Somebody asked what you can do.  On
Wednesday, this lady (Bobbie) faces extradition to the state of
Washington where she and Michael testified before sitting
sheriffs and prosecutors on child abuse issues in 1986 that
resulted in the indictment of child porno rings.  Now the State
of California knows this.  In 1985 and 1986 this lady and Michael
R., through depositions, entered testimony in the Fred Alvarez
triple execution.  It was shot down politically under Willie
Brown and Governor Deukmejian.  John Gordnier was the Attorney
General for criminal investigations, at the time, in California.
(He) is still in that position.
     If any of you care about the fact that the state of
California has an obligation to protect key witnesses in criminal
investigations, then contact John Gordnier (916/324-5169, FAX
324-5205) at the State Attorney General's office, Gene Gilbert
(619/863-8468, FAX [phone]) of the Riverside D.A.'s office, Tom
Gates (310/477-6565, FAX: [phone]) at the F.B.I. Los Angeles
division, 310 area code.  You tell them you want this lady and
her family protected.  She's willing to appear at every court
hearing, here in Napa.  She's not willing to go back to Mason
County, Washington, where she testified before sitting sheriffs.
She wants her children (who are) in Washington to have the
opportunity for a hearing and their own attorney, that's all
she's asking.  She's spoken to them daily since they were taken
from her, and they are asking for their own attorney.  Their
father is saying that they're not entitled.

Bobbie Riconosciuto: He told them several things, but that's kind
of irrelevant, I don't want to get into a lot of that.  I
promised my children that I would review anything that I was
going to say to the press about them specifically, other than
possibly an amusing anecdote.  I don't have any amusing ones
because my heart hurts from the stress of this ... my kids.
     It's true, the State of California, Department of Justice,
offered us protection, my children and I, in 1986.  We declined
to be a part of the witness protection program when several of
the witnesses were killed - they were part of the protection
program.  Given Michael's background, he was more than capable of
protecting the children and I from whatever.  Now the problem
we've had all along, my children were, because of their life with
their dad, they were aware of some things as well, that they
disclosed through therapists and what not, that was used to
indict cops in Washington State.  These people don't like us very
well.  They're using the same groups of people now to keep a
tight reign on my kids since they've been up there.  There
haven't been any overt threats, and they were told if they would
go with him, without a fight, that they could come back to
California and live with me and that I wouldn't be tried in
Washington, that it would go away, if they would just spend a
little time with him.
     As soon as they got up there, and as a matter of fact while
I was at a hearing recently, last week, they filed court papers
that I'm not allowed to have a copy of, a judge signed an order
that I'm not allowed to hear.  The only reason that I know what
some of the papers say is because my children read them before
their dad got home from work.  Basically, what they want to do is
they want to put me away up there.  Well, I wont last a month,
I'm tellin' ya, because the people that I testified against, the
same people who beat me to a pulp in 1986, and told me "Michael
can't help you now" over and over again until I couldn't hear
anymore, are in the jail that they're going to put me in.  Some
of them are the correctional officers and some are prisoners for
other related derelict activity.  It's not a safe place for my
kids, it's not a safe place for me, and I don't have anybody to
watch this child if they extradite me.
     We don't have any money anymore, they took it all.  They
took everything.  What I know for sure is that the rights that I
thought that I still had, that I thought Michael had, that I
thought Danny had, we don't have anymore.  The reason that people
like Danny are shut up quicker, I think, Danny ... couldn't be
put down for any reason.  One of the last things that Danny
Casolaro did for me and my children was to tell anybody and
everybody that we lived in Utah, when he knew that we didn't,
because I talked to him five hours a day up until the weekend
that he left for Martinsburg and never came back.  He pushed some
buttons that we would have preferred him to push much quieter,
but he knew what was out there, he knew what the possibilities
were.  He thought, just like Michael thought, Michael didn't
expect to not be able to handle what came down on him, he didn't
expect not to be able to protect us.
     With Michael, just because of his position, there are
stages: "Ready to be quiet now?" "No."  What's the point now?
I've been the carrot in Michael's life - the children and I were
the carrot - "If you're a good boy and you disavow everything
that you told Congress and say that you made it up, we might let
you see them before your daughter's grown and gone - we *might*
let you be a family again.  If you don't, we'll let you see how
much you want to talk about it now," and that's what they told
Michael the day I was arrested.  "Do you still want to go before
a Grand Jury?  You still want to talk about it?"  Michael, being
who he is, in our household, and with these children, tore up the
papers that I had just sent him as documentation, copies by the
way, and said "I don't want to talk anymore.  I don't want to
talk to the Grand Jury.  Send me back to Terminal Island for 30
years.  I refuse to talk to anybody until this extradition is not
over her head anymore, and those children are safe once again."

Dave Emery: One of the main points in this whole thing - in order
for that kind of pressure to be brought to bear, think of all the
people at various stages who have to have compromised themselves.
In other words the whole system is basically working in a corrupt
fashion.  The entire criminal justice system in the state of
Washington, and the Federal criminal justice system is working in
a contra-legal fashion in order to bring this kind of pressure.
This is the end result of what took place with the development of
the national security state, and from a very practical as well as
philosophical standpoint it's fascism, and it's going to be
getting worse.  This is what it's gotten to in 1992.  I said at
the very beginning of the talk this evening that I'd like to be
optimistic.  I'm not optimistic, but at the same time we really
do not have a choice.  Things will not get better unless we get
involved and make them better - they're going to get worse ...

Virginia: ... Thank you for listening, because I think that each
and every one of you that has access to the non-controlled media,
the computer network, needs to get this out on the computer
network.  Bobbie does need one more thing.  There are papers that
were filed against her 11/23/92 in Mason County, Washington.
They read Steven Peterson versus Roberta Peterson.  She has not
been given the papers, copies of those papers, the children have
not been given copies of those papers, we cannot get copies of
those papers from the Mason County clerk who signed accepting
service for Bobbie Riconosciuto in 1987.  Here name is Ginger
Brooks, by all means...

Bobbie: Give her a call.

Virginia: ... She's one of the good old girls, remember her well,
and anybody who has access

Bobbie: She also signed my warrant.

Virginia: Anybody who knows Ginger Brooks or can get copies of
those papers filed 11/23/92, my telephone number is 510/862-2362,
my FAX is 862-0145.  I would kiss your feet if you would just FAX
me a copy of those papers.

Where is she at?

Bobbie: Shelton, Washington.

Virginia: Ginger Brooks, clerk of the superior court, under Judge
Shawyer (sp?).  Judge Shawyer has direct conflicts of interest in
this case.  The other judge newly appointed to the bench, Toni
Sheldon, she has direct conflicts of interest in this case, as
does the attorney representing her ex-husband, Steven Peterson,
Jeanette Boothe.  Jeannette Boothe was also Bobbie Riconosciuto's
attorney...

Bobbie: and my parent's attorney

Virginia: This is the situation in justice, in the state of
Washington, in Mason County.

Bobbie: It's a good Microcosm of what goes on in this country and
what's possible.  That particular county and the way that they do
things, just general rule of thumb, you know, the fact that my
court file can be checked out.  They don't have to keep it there,
they can bring it back when they're done.

Dave: The way the long hand came down from Mason County to Napa
County - it's larger than that one county.

Bobbie: Definitely, definitely.

     The right thing to do is never the easiest thing to do.  The
     moral, ethical, and most compassionate imperative from within
     your heart may in fact be the most difficult.  To be informed is
     important, to tell others is even more important, but without
     tangible action, our efforts are meaningless.

     Paul Franklin