Harris county sheriff uniform

Huang Yanqiu was born in 1956 in Dongbeigao Village in China's Hebei province. Little is known about his early life aside from the fact that he worked as a farmer in the village and his mother passed away while he was a child.
On July 27, 1977, Huang was 21 years old and still working as a farmer. Huang was recently engaged and planned on marrying his fiancee after the harvest season and the couple recently began building themselves a new home. At 10:00 PM Huang had just finished his farm work for the day and went to bed in his unfinished home. That was the last anyone had seen of Huang for a while as the next morning when the village woke up on July 28 Huang was nowhere to be found.
The village was greatly alarmed by Huang's disappearance and initiated a massive search effort to try and find him but there was no trace of Huang anywhere to be found. This worried and confused the villagers especially Huang's family as Huang never travelled far and only had a primary school level education. They searched the surrounding roads, ponds, cliffs and other unknown locations to try and find him and even contacted the nearest hospitals and police to ask if any unidentified bodies had been discovered but to no avail.
Fortunately, Huang would be found alive and unharmed but this only resulted in more questions. 10 days later on August 6 the village committee received a telegram from Shanghai. The telegram said that Huang was being held at a deportation center and that they were hoping for a local to come and pick him up. The telegram was late to arrive because it was accidentally addressed to the wrong village. There was just one problem, the telegram from Shanghai was dated at 9:AM on July 28 less than half a day after his disappearance. Huang was later returned by the police in Shanghai and it was indeed Huang. There was just one problem, Huang being in Shanghai that soon should've been impossible.
Huang was questioned by his fellow villagers and he could not provide an answer. According to him, he went to bed and when at 6:00 or 7:00 AM he was awoken by a loud noise, this noise wasn't that of the farm animals but instead the sounds of vehicles and numerous people. When he fully awoke he found himself on a sidewalk and that around him were cars, neon lights and tall buildings/skyscrapers. He wondered around and saw writing on the various buildings and businesses which said things such as "Nanjing Shopping Center", "Nanjing Restaurant", and "Nanjing Pharma" and that nearby was a large "swimming pool" which he later found out was Lake Xuanwu. It didn't take Huang long to realize that somehow he was in Nanjing the capital city of Jiangsu Province located 485 miles away from his home village.
While Huang who was now in complete and utter shock at his circumstance walked aimlessly around the unfamiliar city until he was stopped and approached by two police officers. Huang due to his state of shock and disbelief could barely answer their questions. When they asked Huang what he was doing or who he was he simply said that he was "really lost" the two officers led Huang to the Nanjing Rail Station and gave him a ticket to Shanghai and told Huang that they would be waiting for him and once he arrived he'd be taken to a "repatriation camp" for migrants and those without a hukou document. Huang not knowing what else to do and being in no position to disobey or resist bordered the train. 4 hours later the train pulled into Shanghai station and Huang headed out for the first police station he could find and to his confusion, the exact same police officers from Nanjing were already waiting for him despite being out of their jurisdiction, not boarding the train before him and most of all the train was the fastest method available at the time to travel between the two cities and the officers did not bored the train. Arriving to Shanghai before Huang should be straight-up impossible.
The two officers refused to let Huang enter the police station in Shanghai and instead dropped Huang off at the repatriation camp in Shanghai. Huang first told his story to a PLA soldier at the camp named Lü Qingtang and added the detail that the police officers in question were likely from Shandong province based on the ticket he was given. Huang stayed in the camp much longer than expected as when Huang woke up in Nanjing he didn't have any of his identity documents and when the telegrams were sent out to the village to come collect Huang they erroneously addressed them to Xinzhai Village instead of Dongbeigao Village. The confusion was only cleared up after Huang was identified via a birthmark and because the PLA soldier Huang talked to had relatives in the village.
As mentioned any questions the villagers had were multiplied as opposed to answered. Huang arriving in Nanjing that soon should be impossible. At the time trains in China were too slow to make such a fast trip. The nearest rail station was in the city of Handan which Huang would've had to find his way to in the dark despite having never even been to Handan before. But even if he did make it to Handan all by himself with next to no money the train would take 1 whole day to reach Nanjing as opposed to the 9-10 hours between when Huang went to sleep and when he woke up. And this is without taking into account the waiting time for the train to arrive at Haidan station and trains were notoriously late back them sometimes even being held back by an entire day and tickets were expensive.
Other methods of transportation also wouldn't work out. Planes and civilian aviation travel in China was still very new and of course expensive. The entirety of Hebei Province only had a tiny handful of airports with the closest one being in the north near Beijing located on the complete opposite side of Hebei from where Huang lived. It was deemed highly unlikely for Huang to make the trip there by himself especially as he wouldn't know the way and even if he did somehow make it to the airport there would still be the issue of paying for a ticket. A car also wouldn't work as nobody in Dongbeigao village owned a vehicle and even having a bicycle was considered immensely expensive and outside the means of the villagers. And even if he could use any of these methods it still wouldn't explain the short time as to even get from Dongbeigao village to the nearest city Handan would take 4 hours to drive from the village to the city by car. There was also the question of why Huang would assuming he wasn't lying would do this. Huang had never mentioned Nanjing or Shanghai at any point prior and the fact that leaving their ancestral village and families was frowned upon. How Huang made it to Nanjing in such a short amount of time is unknown but most villagers were prepared to accept it as a strange oddity and move on while others dismissed Huang as lying or bragging about visiting a city. That was until it happened again.
On September 8, 1977, it was harvest season in the village again and Huang and his fellow villagers were made to do backbreaking work during a meeting held by the village cadres. At 10:00 PM the head of the village gave Huang and a few other villagers permission to leave and go to bed early as long as they send and deliever manure/fertilizer the next morning. They all took the cadres up on this offer and went to sleep. The next morning on September 9 the villagers arrived at the fertiliser storage area only to notice that Huang was missing. Thinking that he had overslept they all went to his house only to find it empty. Something different caught their eye however, Carved into his bedroom wall was a message and that message said "Shandong Gao Dengmin, Gao Yanjin Relax"
Just like the last time Huang was in Shanghai and was quickly sent back to the village on September 11 and this time there were witnesses both in Shanghai and Dongbeigao. A majority of the village witnessed Huang go to his house and sleep before his disappearance the next morning and just like with his first disappearance Huang couldn't explain it.
According to Huang, he woke up at The Shanghai Rail Station due to a cold breeze, the same one the two mysterious police officers sent him to. Huang was again startled by his surroundings as it was the middle of the night and according to the Station's clock tower, it was 2:00 AM and as far as Huang could see there were no other people and the only light came from the stars and moon. Not only had Huang unknowingly travelled a far distance in an impossibly short time but he also did it at an inopportune time because along with the darkness Huang was constantly startled by the sound of thunder, lighting and battered by heavy rain and high winds because Typhon Babe had recently made landfall near Shanghai.
Huang who was now even more terrified than he was before could only think of Lü Qingtang, Lü was the PLA soldier who helped him after his first trip to Shanghai and was the one who ultimately helped him return home due to his relatives in the village. Lü was not only the only person Huang could think to help him but he was also the only person he knew at all in Shanghai. Finding Lü was not going to be easy as Huang wouldn't be able to navigate Shanghai at all let alone during a typhoon in the middle of the night with no people in sight.
As Huang began to walk he heard a voice coming from behind him hearing a man say "Hello there, you must be Huang Yanqiu of Feixiang County. Trying to head to the artillery division?" this shocked him immensely and he quickly turned back to see who this person was. When he turned around he saw two men dressed in military uniforms. They told Huang that they were soldiers belonging Lü's division and were assigned to pick him up from the railway station.
Huang followed the men who took various ferries and buses before arriving at the "artillery division" located in what is today the Pudong District. Despite how heavily guarded the area is the guards let Huang and the two men pass without issue. They then went to where Lü lived with his family and they were completely shocked to see them as well as Huang again. Lü however, wasn't home at the time. His wife Li Yuying was surprised that the three were even at their home because according to Li "When a relative comes to visit, they have to show their legal documents and sign in at the gate, we'll then come down and confirm their identities, then they can finally be let in. No way the guards and soldiers would let them in without any proceedings!" and years later Lü's son when questioned about the case would say that the two solider's uniforms looked off, he commented that . "...their uniforms looked quite the ordinary, yet not very fitting, especially their visors. One's shoes and visor are the most important part of the uniform,... their visors were too big, and their uniforms seem to have been borrowed, too."
Before his family could question the two they simply walked away and couldn't be found again. Huang being at the base was a major security violation and officials interrogated the guards on duty who all claimed to have never seen Huang and the two soldiers at any point. Once Lü returned home another telegram was sent directly to the head of Dongbeigao Village and they wanted to know every last detail about Huang and who exactly he was with the telegram even straight up asking if Huang was a spy. They received a response from the head of the village, telling them that Huang was just a farmer with no ill intent. Without any other information, the army decided to send Huang back to the village but sternly warned him that he'd be arrested if they ever see him again. He returned home on September 11. In their official reports the military was unable to explain how Huang got to Shanghai so quickly and managed to get into the base.
Due to the multitude of witnesses testifying that Huang went to sleep in the village and the military confirming that he was in Shanghai all those who felt that Huang was lying about his travels soon had their doubts erased. Huang became the most talked about resident of the village and not in a good way as he became the main subject of all the local gossip, rumours and of course superstitions. Many thought that he was possessed or haunted with that being the reason for his seemingly supernatural speed and ability to travel such short distances. The constant attention took a mental toll on Huang's fiance who sued his family for 200 yuan due to "reputational damages" and divorced him. This financially and emotionally ruined Huang and it was when he was at his lowest that the third and final incident happened.
Huang continued his work as a farmer and labourer for the village and on September 20, 1977, he had finished his work for the day and began walking home. According to Huang, however, so tired that he ended up passing out in the yard in front of his house and went missing again. He would stay missing until September 28 when he was found under a Jujube tree in the village and when asked where he had been he told them about the most extraordinary story yet.
According to him, after he passed out in front of his home he woke up and instead of on the sidewalk or in a deserted train station during typhoon season he instead found himself in a luxury hotel room. He looked around and behind him, he saw the same two men from the first two incidents. This time, however, they were both dressed in civilian clothing and introduced themselves. They told Huang that they were brothers from Shandong Province and identified themselves as Gao Dengmin, 26, and Gao Yanjin, 25. Huang also estimated that they were around 170 cm tall. They told Huang that they were the cause behind his disappearances and that they dressed as police and soldiers to help him find his way home, they said that they had something special planned for Huang and that during the next 9 days, they would take him to 9 major cities. Huang asked where he was right now and the brothers told him that it was still September 20 and that he was in Lanzhou located in China's Gansu Province the furthest he has ever been from home.
Soon Huang would learn how he had travelled so far so quickly because the next day on September 21 they made Huang climb onto their back and as Huang would later state "They took off" and quite literally flew away with just their bodies. Huang said that they were "flying" at a low altitude and that he didn't feel any wind, he also recounted that the brothers took turns carrying him on their back. In over an hour, the three had arrived in Beijing. They first went to the Chang'an Grand Theater without tickets and just like at the army base nobody stopped them. They watched an opera performance of Forced Onto Mt. Liang. Their next stop was Tiananmen Square and were in front of a Huabiao. The brothers who were now speaking standard Mandarin instead of their dialects introduced Huang to the surrounding areas and checked into a hotel showing the staff a "provincial-level introduction letter" for registration. That same day they then flew to Tianjin where they snuck into a movie theatre without tickets and watched a movie.
On September 22 they arrived in Harbin located in Heilongjiang Province. In Harbin, they visited a department store and then visited Changchun in Jilin Province. On September 23 they went to Shenyang in Liaoning Province. On September 25 they visited Fuzhou in Fujian Province before visiting Nanjing. They spend the next day in Nanjing. On September 27 they visited Xi'an in Shaanxi Province for the Mid-Autumn Festival. Also on September 27, they made their last stop returning to Lanzhou. When Huang went to sleep in their hotel room he woke up under the jujube tree mentioned earlier and was back in Dongbeigao Village
They travelled to every city via the brothers flying and according to Huang no matter how close or how far the city was the time it took to get there was always 1 hour. He also noted that the brothers could speak the local dialects of all the provinces they visited and whenever they went to hotels the brothers always had a "provincial-level introduction letter". One of the brothers always watched Huang while the other would borrow clothing such as police or military uniforms from somewhere Huang didn't know. Clothing and yuan for the accommodations and meals were the only items the brothers carried as they didn't seem to own items such as bags and wallets. Aside from their ability to fly to anywhere they wanted and their strange behaviour such as only carrying clothes and money, Huang said that they were seemingly normal human beings in every other aspect and ate and slept like anyone else. They also had the same body temperature as anyone else would The only rules they seemed to have were that Huang was not allowed to photograph them or anything and he couldn't keep any souvenirs from his trips. When Huang asked why they singled him out they wouldn't respond and when he asked if they could teach him how to fly like them or tell him how they learnt to do it they gave a firm "No" as their answer. Just as they had told him in the 9 days he was missing they had visited 9 different cities.
Huang was the talk of the village all over again and the superstitions that gods or ghosts were responsible continued. Eventually, the gossip around Huang had gotten to the point that the local police, propaganda department and the nearest military base had heard of Huang's story and began a very extensive investigation into Huang. Offical's believed that he was purposefully sabotaging the village's production and reputation and proceeded to classify him as a "class enemy" While being interrogated his behaviour was found to be "normal" and he showed no signs of mental illness or cognitive disorders. After they were unable to find any evidence of Huang being a threat they reluctantly let him go and revoked his "class enemy" status.
Huang's story became well known throughout China and is one of the country's most famous alleged paranormal events and even the government officially declares his case as "unexplained" This is not the end of Huang's story though.
On December 14, 2004, the case was reinvestigated by Zhang Jingping, an investigator of the Beijing Branch of the China UFO Association, Ji Jianmin, the chairman of the Feixiang UFO Association, and Dr. Wu, a famous Chinese hypnotist, professor of Peking University Medical Department. There was rather conclusive evidence of Huang's first two incidents as numerous witnesses as well as official telegrams all confirm that Huang had gone to sleep in his home village only to appear in Shanghai but there was far more doubt as to if he had been to any of the cities mentioned during his third disappearance.
Huang was put under hypnosis and asked what happened and he told the doctor the same story he did back in 1977. Huang eventually woke up from the hypnotic state claiming that one of the two brothers made him wake up. In 2004 a documentary was made by CCTV and several interviews and tests were conducted during the documentary. He was subjected to a polygraph test and he ended up failing the test and Huang refused to accept these results. Those administering the tests also admitted that Huang's declining memory, the 27-year gap between the test and the incident and the stress of being subjected to such a test for the first time may affect the results. During the documentary, the police based on Huang's descriptions also created composite sketches of Gao Dengmin and Gao Yanjin. Due to the advancement in China's transportation infrastructure, Huang was brought to Nanjing and he was able to retrace his steps and attempt to recreate his journey from the sidewalk to the former then non-existent military base.
They then brought Huang to the physiatric division of Beijing Anding Hospital where the lead doctor after reading his statements said that the brothers would've been travelling at supersonic speeds and that Huang had been sleepwalking or lying. Although nobody defended him from claims of sleepwalking his fellow villagers all refused to entertain the possibility that Huang was purposefully lying to them. They cited Huang's lack of motivation or ability to travel, how he travelled to Shanghai in such a short amount of time and how he had no reason to lie about it since telling his story caused him to become a laughing stock and lost him his fiance. Huang quite literally gain nothing from telling this story and it severely affected him negatively. Aside from a lack of evidence others supporting the lying theory state that Huang only claimed to have visited major cities prompting some to speculate that he just picked them out from a map and that oddly enough he never visited Shijiazhuang which is the capital of Hebei, the province that Huang actually lives in.
Huang was examined by other psychologists and mental health professionals who deemed Huang to be sane which is the source of the sleepwalking theory.
As this theory suggests, Huang was sleepwalking when he made his way to Nanjing and that the stories of the two brothers were just dreams he had while sleepwalking. Various Chinese netizens don't view this theory as credible since Huang while sleepwalking would need to either walk all the way to the train station in Handan (which would take 4 hours to drive to by car) and buy a tick with money he didn't have all while asleep. And while still sleeping once the train stopped in Zhengzhou he would've sleepwalked onto the next train to Shanghai all with nobody noticing he was sleepwalking and waking him up. Just to be sure though doctors performed an MRI scan of Huang's brain and the results came back normal.
The third theory is that Huang suffered from multiple personality disorder and that Gao Dengmin and Gao Yanjin were in fact Huang himself and that he just perceived them as different people due to his disorder. The Gao personalities are the ones that actually travel to the locations only for Huang's normal personality to take over once he arrives at the destination hence him waking up. This theory also states that Huang flying on their backs is actually just a fantasy of Huang Yanqiu's repressed personality. This theory doesn't stand up to scrutiny as various Mental Health officials have found Huang sane and that he would've shown signs of multiple personality disorder before and after the three incidents. This theory also wouldn't explain the short travel times and Lü Qingtang's wife and son also witnessing the two as separate people.
There is one more theory though it is from those who want to believe that it is all real and that Huang is telling the truth and that UFOs may be involved.
They looked further into Huang's claims to try and find any proof that he was in the cities mentioned during his third disappearance. According to one source when describing the weather they matched up with geological data at the time but this appears to be unconfirmed. A journalist went to the Chang'an Grand Theater in Beijing to look through their records and see if they ever held the same performance Huang claimed to have seen.
He discovered that the theatre closed due to the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake and wouldn't reopen until 1979 meaning that Huang could not have seen any performances in that theatre. However, there was another theatre nearby named the Jixiang Theater and they were open in 1977 and on September 21, 1977, the day Huang claimed to be in Beijing they held a performance of Forced Onto Mt. Liang. This journalist ruled that Huang hailing from a small and rural village could've easily confused two nearby and similar theatres in an unfamiliar environment such as the major city of Beijing.
There are also those who agree that Huang travelled at nearly supersonic speeds but instead have a more terrestrial explanation and that Huang fell victim to military experimentation.
This theory states that the military flew Huang to these cities for various experiments and that the Gao brothers were high-ranking officials in charge of the experiments. They then drugged Huang and made him undergo hypnosis to make him forget what he experienced. Many are skeptical of this theory because if the Chinese government wanted to conduct human experimentation they had a myriad of death row inmates and political prisons to draw upon so why instead abduct an innocuous rural farmer from his small village?
"The Huang Yanqiu Incident" remains one of China's most infamous unsolved mysteries but as of now, there have been no new developments as a now 67-year-old Huang has opted to live a quiet life in his village away from the cameras. The last bit of news from Huang came from 2008 when he underwent another round of mental evaluations
Sources
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%BB%84%E5%BB%B6%E7%A7%8B%E4%BA%8B%E4%BB%B6/3270760
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050729/100743.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050729/100649.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050728/102027.shtml
http://www.cctv.com/program/zoujinkexue/topic/science/C14443/20050727/102186.shtml
https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/27626821

"I am not allowed much danger Keep in line you're an old friend stranger. You'll burn me in effigy and I'll burn you in effigy." A rattle snake up in buffalo Montana He bit the leg of the old sheriff Ha! That boy fell down on his harelip Well I, I might be wrong But you you tag along And we we all been wronged And I get dizzier by the mile Said hell! The money's spent Went to the county line And paid the rent said "Uh-oh"
The lyrics to this so are so over looked. I didn't know the verses for the longest time either but it makes the song so much better when you unpack what Isaac has to say

I just want people to know that the Sonoma County government is corrupt. They spent 186 million dollars on a "new courthouse" that is 163k square feet, which works out to $1,100 per square foot, which is over double the second most expensive building I could find was, and over four times the average price per square foot of palaces and museums. And it's just going to look like a giant portable. This is to house some of the most corrupt people in this County, who all make $200-350+k per year (I am including their benefits in that, but not their pension). The entire DA's Office has a vendetta against Civil Rights in general, and will literally knowingly commit criminal violations of laws for the purpose of covering up serious criminal misconduct on the part of Sonoma County employees.
Lynda Hopkins took money from the law enforcement unions, and turns a willfully blind eye to it.
The County Office of Legal Counsel is literally a crime syndicate.
In 2015, the Sheriff's Office had a veritable torture ring in the jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izcHIv5Y4z8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYrGChrW5HM&list=TLPQMzAwMzIwMjMv0QAOPDy1Lw&index=2
This is just the tip of the iceberg. They lied about the existence of these videos, and "lost" the one where they gave one of the inmates internal bleeding, with a knee to their back.
There was a lawsuit about it. It was called the "Yard Counseling Case". There are news articles about it.
There was an official, written policy, called "Yard Counseling", later its name was changed to "Behavior Counseling" which dictated that for arbitrary punitive measures, Sheriff's Office personnel should extract inmates from their cells individually (which meant slamming their heads onto the door frames on the way out and other abuse), and isolate them, and putting them into "pain compliance" techniques (literally, by definition, torture) for extended periods of time while "counseling" them, which meant wearing no name tags, ski masks and riot gear, carrying a shotgun with them, and insulting them in explicit language for over 20 minutes.
This official written policy was acknowledged by Rob Giordano in a video, where he lies that no inmates where injured, uploaded to YouTube in 2018, when they finally addressed this official written policy, and the practice of torturing inmates without reasonable cause (leading exercise routines, for example).
In 2021, they saw one of the victims of this torture ring, who had sued them and had won, at a peaceful protest, and shot him with a grenade launcher while hiding on a rooftop in the face with a crowd control grenade, which exploded on impact and caused horrific injury that I don't care to describe.
In 2017, I was almost killed by application of a "carotid hold" / lateral vascular neck restraint, by a sheriff's deputy, for literally no reason. A knee was placed on my lower back while I was on the ground on my stomach as well, which caused a serious injury to my kidney, which was the worst injury of my life. I have also been diagnosed with an organic brain injury and cognitive impairment. I was tested for the same type of cognitive impairment before the incident and there is a marked difference, and I have about 30 pages describing the differences I've noticed / troubles I've had in my cognitive functioning. There was no probable cause to arrest me, and I was polite and compliant with all the instructions given to me, and this was confirmed by witnesses. I was punished for invoking my right to remain silent, then my arm was grabbed and yanked up behind me, and then a carotid hold was applied because my body pivoted after the deputy grabbed and yanked my arm.
This occurred UNDER A CAMERA and IN FRONT OF WITNESSES. I called the Sheriff's Office the next day said I want to "make an official complaint in writing". I was transferred to Captain of Internal Affairs, Captain Mark Essick. I repeated my request, verbatim. He responded, verbatim: "We don't do that. Why don't you tell me what happened." I did. I told him it happened right under a camera. He said "The camera can't record." I asked for confirmation. He said the cameras "Don't have recording technology installed."
I asked the County for a claim form. They ignored my request, and instructed me to report the incident to IOLERO. IOLERO requested I meet with Internal Affairs, and I said fine.
Sgt. Andy Cash called me and scheduled me for a meeting at the Sheriff's den. I was made to walk first and guided upstairs to a meeting room, and then patted down for weapons, and the interview was recorded. For 75 minutes I was deposed about happened. He asked me repeatedly about my mental state after the incident. I admitted that I was upset after the incident, and he acted like that justified the whole incident. He explicitly promised to interview the 4 deputies who witnessed the event in addition to the 2 deputies who participated, as well as the arresting officer (who I told him would confirm that I was polite and cooperative), which he agreed "would confirm [my] demeanor", and a bystander witness I told him about.
I complained to IOLERO director Jerry Threet. Mr. Threet agreed that that was inappropriate, then resigned without reviewing the investigation.
For about 4 years review of the investigation was put on hold because IOLERO staff quit, and when more staff was hired, they complained of being understaffed. They had a budget of over a million dollars but only had 2 employees. They only reviewed one case per four months. And they put off "backlogged" cases and focused on new cases. My complaint was finally reviewed by Interim Director Garrick Byers who clearly stated that the investigation was not conducted appropriately. I have the letter from him. That still has never been made public.
After the interview with Internal Affairs, I corresponded with Lynda Hopkins, and she refused to give her opinion on the matter. I specifically complained that the carotid hold was being used recklessly, and it is a dangerous technique. This was in 2018. She forwarded me to Janell Crane, who then had me meet with Kristi Schultz.
I contacted the DA's Office and spoke to Richard Celli (who made $346k in 2017, and has gunned down two unarmed people, and was convicted by a jury in one of the civil cases brought against him by one of the victim's family, but the sentence was overturned by a judge, while working for the SRPD). The first time I spoke to Mr. Celli, he told me that another law enforcement agency should take my case. After that first time, him and the rest of the DA's Office openly refused to comply with the Victims' Rights Laws (CA Con Art. 1 S. 28), and the "policies" (which are legally binding under CA Con Art 5 S. 13) of the Attorney General stating clearly that they are to take complaints from victims if it can't be resolved with the department.
After the first talk with Mr. Celli, I called Rohnert Park Police as I was instructed, and they 3-way called the Sheriff's office and then transferred me. I spent about 30 minutes reporting the incident to a deputy, and he asked me questions in a fair manner. The incident report from the 30 minute phone call was "directed" to Andrew Cash, and was then destroyed, which is literally a state and federal crime. I called RPPD back and talked to the arresting officer and he positively clearly confirmed that I was "polite, calm, compliant, and cooperative" (or something nearly verbatim, I can't remember exactly any more).
Andrew Cash called me the next day, at precisely 7:00 AM. He told me he was driving. He was extremely confrontational with me. He said "There were 6 deputies [referring to the two who used excessive force on me, and 4 witness deputies]. You were combative." This was false. He had only interviewed one of the 4 witness deputies, and the other 3 had provided written statements. They said that they had witnessed force being used, that they had not participated in the use of force to the best of their memory, and that I "did not appear to be resisting". But again, he had promised explicitly to interview the 4 deputy witnesses, and the arresting officer, and the other witnesses (such as the bystander witness who saw the whole incident, the nurse, etc.).
Internal Affairs exonerated the officers. The letter was signed by Eddie Engram, captain of Internal Affairs at that time. I called Mr. Engram, and had an hour long conversation with him, and he told me to contact Sgt. Cash after April 1st.
I filed a federal claim on the last day that it was due.
Mr. Cash referred me to Legal Counselor, Kara Abelson.
Ms. Abelson spent a year and a half refusing to comply with the Public Records Act, the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. She refused to provide me documents that I was entitled to under law, including the incident report written by Deputies Jacquelin Fazzio and Virgil Smith, and the recorded interviews that he promised he would conduct, and stated pretty clearly that he had conducted.
Kara Abelson spent a year and a half trying to claim that my federal complaint was time barred by 1 day when it wasn't. The judge (Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers) entertained this and forced me to respond SEVEN TIMES, before she finally admitted that the "law wouldn't allow [her] to dismiss [my] complaint".
After a year and a half, Kara Abelson finally withdrew from the case after I started citing the Rules of Professional Conduct to her that require her to resign or withdraw from the case rather than defend a civil case where defense isn't warranted. Nobody had disputed any of the allegations I had made. In fact, Eddie Engram had confirmed that what I said happened was not disputed by the evidence.
At some point around this time, either before or after Ms. Abelson withdrew, the 2 incident reports written by the two deputies, the written statements by 3 of the 4 witness deputies, and the recorded interviews with me, the 2 deputies who assaulted me, and 1 of the eye witness deputies, were provided, along with various other records from the facility. In the recorded interview, and the incident report, the deputies admitted that Virgil Smith had applied the carotid hold.
I had also reported the incident to the State Attorney General Public Inquiry Unite (Lupe Zinzin). She had told me, over and over and over, that the local DA's are required to take complaints from civilians in these situations. She refused to call the DA's Office, though. The DA's Office (Richard Celli, Mark Azzouni, David Kahl, and the anonymous receptionists who all refused to provide their names) refused to take a complaint from me. They (including the receptionists) hung up on me every time I called after no more than 2 minutes, for no reason, transferred me to dead lines, never returned any voicemails I managed to leave, told me explicitly that if I send a complaint, they will throw it away, and didn't care, at all, what the laws were. The receptionists also refuse to provide their names. The Attorney General's Office told me to send them a complaint, so I did. The DA's Office acknowledged receiving the complaint. But later said that they did not have a record of it, meaning they threw it away.
The Attorney General's Office finally agreed to take a complaint from me. It sat on their desk for a year. I finally called them, concerned that evidence was being destroyed, and left a voicemail for Casey Hallinan requesting that they request copies of the physical evidence from the Sheriff's Office. Literally 2 days after that voicemail, a letter was sent to me signed by Sharon Loughner with Casey Hallinan CC'ed on the letter, stating that they would "take no action", and blamed the incident on me. I had not received the letter though, and called and spoke to Ms. Hallinan, who was extremely rude. After that, the Attorney General's Office hang up on me as soon as they find out it's me, for no reason. There has since been a bystander witness who saw the whole thing, and it has come to light that the cameras did record, that no upgrades were ever performed like Ms. Abelson alleged, the cameras do continuously record (as of 2019), and they just lied through their teeth about the camera for 4 straight years. The Attorney General's Office does not care. They violate the laws, and do not care what the laws are.
Sonoma County Office of Legal Counsel attorney Michael King took over after Ms. Abelson withdrew. Right off the bat, Mr. King told me that my motions were deficient - a contention he has repeated frequently, since then. I asked him how. He changed the subject, and to this day has NEVER given any explanation as to how any of my motions are deficient.
He continued to claim that my claim was time barred, filing frivolous motions, in blatant violation of the rules of professional conduct, after I cited the rules to him, constituting explicit legal misconduct.
As I said, the judge finally agreed to open Discovery after a year and a half of full time work trying to fight for my right to not be nearly murdered for no reason.
Lawyers do not take these cases unless there is undeniable proof of blatant guilt, along with undeniable proof of catastrophic injury. Multiple law firms have confirmed that it takes over a million dollars worth of legal work to get these cases to trial.
The judge also promised me a pro bono attorney "if you make it past summary judgment".
The judge scheduled us for Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) hearing with a magistrate judge. Mr. King elicited an offer from me, which I spent about 2 weeks working on, trying to make it as agreeable as possible. But then for the hearing, his written offer was to waive charging me his attorneys fees. The ADR magistrate confirmed that there was no legal basis for him to do that - it would be illegal. He had been ordered to participate in this hearing, and there was a legal obligation under the Rules of Procedure to try in good faith to settle the case. He violated the order and the rule of procedure (26 (f)).
All of my motions were completely ignored for no reason.
Mr. King / Defendant Virgil Smith lied about the cameras. They said "Denies the existence of cameras capable of recording in the vicinity", in writing, under oath. They never disputed that he put his knee on top of my back with all his weight on it.
Mr. King refused to comply with his Discovery obligations. I had to file about 4 different motions pertaining to their refusal to comply with the laws regarding disclosure of evidence.
Upon receiving an official Discovery request for records of camera equipment, I received a letter signed under oath by Mr. King (nearly 4 years after the incident) stating that the cameras CAN RECORD. But stating "tasks must be performed" to start the recording function, and stating that all records pertaining to the equipment that was installed at the time HAD BEEN DESTROYED (literally a federal and state crime, a civil tort violation, and a sanctionable act of legal misconduct).
Mr. King refused to schedule any of the witnesses for deposition, demanded MY deposition BEFORE he would even schedule the two deputies who assaulted me, even though I had been requesting depositions with other witnesses for over a month, and refused to schedule anyone else, he refused to answer interrogatories, he refused to provide copies of the policies from the time of the incident. He tried to pass off a weird spreadsheet with the word camera on it as proof that upgrades had been done to the cameras. He refused to provide complete training records for the deputies. He refused to provide details about the training. He refused to provide blueprints of the facility, refused to provide photos of the cameras at the location, refused to provide still images showing which direction the cameras were pointing, was caught lying under oath (and "penalty of perjury") multiple times, refused to provide photos of the deputies so I could schedule depositions efficiently.
The judge erroneously dismissed my Equal Protection claims, construing them as Due Process and Employment Discrimination claims, which are different types of claims than Equal Protection claims against a government actor. The government cannot arbitrarily treat anyone disparately. The Court also dismissed my "Monell" claim against the municipality for their "policies, customs, or practices", but left me leave to amend that claim. And she waited until Discovery opened over 1.5 years into litigation, to do this, forcing me to amend the complaint DURING DISCOVERY which was only open for a limited amount of time, instead of any point in the 1.5 years prior to that.
In the recorded interview with Andrew Cash and one of the witness deputies, she spontaneously states that Mr. Cash instructed her to review the written statements made by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to the interview. Another deputy witness confirmed that Mr. Cash had instructed her to review the written reports by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to her providing Mr. Cash with a written statement as well.
The judge finally retaliated against me, without rational basis, for filing motions, which I had filed because I was being illegally obstructed from preserving evidence, by withdrawing leave to amend regarding the "Monell" claim (I had stated a clear Monell claim to begin with, but the judge literally has an aversion to reading, and relies on guessing, and is biased against pro se litigants; I am summarizing well over 100 pages, if not well over double that, of motions, objections, and replies and the judge's responsive orders).
She did however, finally schedule a hearing with a Discovery referee magistrate. All my motions (and the months of work I was required to do dictated by the various rules) was completely disregarded, and both me and Mr. King were given 2 pages each (double spaced) to go over discovery issues, even though I had filed about 4 different motions about various issues, and he hadn't filed ANY, about Discovery issues, and never did.
During conference I was required to do in accordance with the Rules, Mr. King repeatedly tried to establish that I had committed crimes during the course of conferring which was my legal obligation, without having any rational basis to believe what he was trying to establish. He demanded evidence that would exist, and he kept repeating every lie he could come up with to the judge. The judge would either get annoyed at me if I addressed any of Mr. King's baseless accusations, or take his statements at face value for being 100% true.
Mr. King finally "compromised" and agreed to schedule depositions with me (as long as Mr. King wanted to) and the two deputies who had assaulted me (for 25 minutes each or something) all simultaneously, but refused to schedule anyone else, even though this was grossly advantageous to him, and in blatant violation of Rule 26 of Civil Procedure. One of the eye witness deputies later confirmed that he had "consulted" her over 4 times prior to the trial. During this deposition, Mr. King asked me where a family member of mine works. He had spent about 30-40 minutes trying to convince me that I can tell him anything, that the entire record was designated confidential, that I had nothing to worry about - and at a deposition, you are obligated to answer the questions unless they are harassing. Mr. King also requested contact information for counselors from over 10 years ago, and that was the only question I didn't answer - I told him to provide the request in writing. At some point after that, I told Mr. King to not contact my family member at her workplace, and Mr. King responded "unless you fully and completely cooperate" with his request for contact information for counselors from 10 years+ ago, he would do exactly that - harass my family member with subpoenas sent to her workplace, as I had requested he not do, without EVER REQUESTING A DEPOSITION WITH HER, just using it as leverage.
At the hearing, the Discovery Magistrate (Donna M. Ryu) discussed matters only with Mr. King, without including me. He told her that the 4 eye witness deputies "saw nothing" and "weren't there" (verbatim) trying to get her to deny me my request to take their deposition. She asked him if he would get them to sign fresh "sworn declarations", "under oath" (Judge Ryu's words, verbatim) stating this. Mr. King said yes, absolutely, he would. Judge Ryu asked me "Would that be okay?" I said "No." She started laughing, and asked me why, and I explained that I had explicitly described various interactions with them that had taken place while the carotid hold was still being applied to me, and that they had stated in their written statements that they had witnessed force being used, and that I was "not resisting". She confirmed that this was all true with Mr. King and that he already knew all of this, and ordered him to cooperate with scheduling them for deposition. Mr. King then repeated the same phrases "saw nothing", "weren't there" to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers prior to the trial.
After that, they went back to discussing matters only with eachother, and I was excluded from discussion. This was an hour long hearing, and at about the 45 minute mark, Mr. King was again lying to the magistrate judge, and when he had finished, I interjected, "That's not true". Judge Ryu shouted "Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop!" And then very assertively explained to me the importance of not interrupting people for the convenience of the court reporter / transcriber. I was excluded from the rest of the hearing.
At some point at either this hearing or the next one, I cited the legal requirement for the parties to disclose contact information for witnesses. I cited the rule of procedure. Judge Ryu responded, "Mr. King is a lawyer!" as if that alone justified his refusal to provide me contact information for EYE witnesses who saw the event. Mr. King and Ms. Abelson had also claimed that they did not have the contact information for the bystander witness (which was a lie), and refused to provide the contact information for the nurse. And when Magistrate Ryu ordered them to provide that, they only gave me the company name he used to work for.
Mr. King refused to provide both fresh written statements from the eye witness deputies as he had promised the magistrate, and to schedule them for deposition, and stated that if he provided written statements, they would be copied and pasted versions of the same statements previously provided, signed under oath (nowhere saying that they "saw nothing" or "weren't there").
Mr. King kept threatening to go to my family member's workplace unless I provided him contact information for counselors from 10+ years ago, DURING a DEPOSITION, without him providing any written request for the information.
He also interfered with scheduling the witnesses for deposition, with the Court reporter that I had hired, disregarded the schedule that I had set, and set them according to his own schedule, which raised the cost of deposition from an estimated about $700 to about $4,000, and said this was my one and only chance.
The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center is an organization that receives seven million dollars a year in public funding and is under contract with the Federal District Court to work with the Court to provide legal consultation to pro se litigants. I had about 19 appointments with them, about 18 with Abby Herzberg, and 1 with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Herzberg was precisely 15 minutes late to every single appointment, repeatedly gave me horrible advice ("just wait", do nothing, "don't file this", despite admitting that the entire motion was valid, directly causing excessive delay and the spoliation of crucial evidence). She also yelled at me aggressively on two occasions because I had brought up state laws, which were being currently violated against me, because the Court had dismissed my "state claims" because Sonoma County refused to supply with a state tort claim form when I first asked, reasoning that was not relevant to the state laws being currently violated against me. After Ms. Herzberg yelled at me the second time, I requested an appointment with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Maliekel spent the entire appointment ranting at me about irrelevant issues, and kept talking over me and interrupting me. I was polite but eventually asked "can I finish what I was saying?" She responded "No!" and kept ranting at me.
I had repeatedly asked about how to properly get medical evidence, and about expert witnesses. Ms. Herzberg ignored my questions and spent nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment reading (or pretending to) through the rules, without letting me speak at all, even to summarize the relevant sections of the rules that I had read.
On a video on their webpage (on the Court's website, because they are a "partner project" with the Court), Abby Herzberg explicitly demonstrates a clear understanding of the fact that the Court provides funding for expert witnesses, despite ignoring my questions about that and spending nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment either reading rules or pretending to.
Discovery was closed.
Mr. King rehashed the legally baseless and frivolous "time barred" claim in a Motion for Summary Judgment. I was required to respond to it twice, and it was obvious Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers wanted to dismiss my claim, and I was required to disprove their baseless legal claims with several tens of pages of case laws. I was required to answer all his "undisputed material facts" under threat of terminating my entire case, but he refused to answer mine. He lied over and over to the judges. As I said, the judge ruled that the laws "wouldn't allow [her] to" dismiss my entire case and rejected his Motion for Summary Judgement.
The Court ordered the Federal Pro Bono Project (FPBP) to put me on a list for attorneys seeking clients. Ms. Herzberg told me that if I filed any motions, that the FPBP would not cooperate with the Court's order, until 1 month before my trial, instead of 6 months before. She also said that a law firm had reached out to them about my case over a month prior to that, and that the staff at the FPBP had not followed up. My filing privileges were then revoked by the Court.
An attorney, David Ratner, reached out to me, and scheduled an initial consultation, over Zoom, at which he stated he "hates cops", and gave a showing of being enthusiastic. I explicitly told him that I wanted to make sure we were on the same page as far as what to "aim for". I told him that I had been working for FIVE YEARS, that I had almost died, that I had suffered two different extremely serious injuries (though I was up front about the injuries being surreptitious and that there had been major delays and flaws with medical evaluation, due to the hospitals not taking my insurance at the time, and ongoing delays because of Covid, and other reasons). I told him that what I asked for was consistent with the most similar case (the Esa Wroth case of 2013) that I knew of (an ask of three million dollars). This was coincidental. I was not aware of the Esa Wroth case when I came up with that number. I agonized over the number to ask for, and had tried SEVERAL times to resolve the case for a tiny fraction of that amount, with Kristi Shultz, with Janell Crane, with Lynda Hopkins, several times with Ms. Abelson who refused to even hear me out, and SEVERAL TIMES with Mr. King, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with a amount that would be MUTUALLY AGREEABLE, EACH TIME and described the methods I used to come up with that number in detail in court documents. Mr. Ratner explicitly agreed to aim for that at the trial. During the Zoom conference, his partner Shelley Mollineaux, showed up about 15 minutes late, stayed for about 3 minutes without saying anything, Mr. Ratner made an awkwardly flirtatious remark to her, and she left without saying anything at all.
Mr. Ratner, and Ms. Mollineaux, who was set to represent me at trial under Mr. Ratner's supervision, then both went dark for over a month. They ignored my emails, voicemails, and messages that I left with their receptionists. There was a hearing, and then Mr. Ratner emailed me demanding "all the documents" that I had. I had over 50 gb of files across thousands of files, and spent about a month working with his paralegals sending them batches of files, and providing all the information they asked me for. Mr. Ratner forwarded me an email from Mr. King where King accused me of violating a court order regarding providing medical providers and the physical addresses of my entire family and my friends, which was false -- the Court had ordered me to provide him CONTACT information, at a second hearing, which wasn't significant, and I had fully and completely complied in good faith with all the Court's orders. Mr. Ratner accused me of not sending him "anything", after I had spent at least several weeks with his paralegals sending them batches of files and information, and he simultaneously threatened to ask the judge for leave to withdraw.
There had been major delays with medical evaluation due in large part to Covid, as well as delayed discovery of brain injury, which is very common, and other factors.
With trial set, Mr. Ratner forwarded me an offer from Defendants for $5,000. Upon discussion (which was 100% in email because he refused to talk over the phone and Ms. Mollineaux completely ignored me), he accused me of not doing Discovery right. I pointed him to the video I referred to earlier, which I had found since Mr. Ratner took my case, but wasn't aware of when I was interacting with the FPBP, where the FPBP (Abby Herzberg), and various District Judges from the Court I was litigating in, state that it is general policy (and it is official policy under the Court's General Order 25) to REOPEN DISCOVERY when a pro bono attorney comes onto the case, and to FUND DEPOSITION AND EXPERT WITNESS FEES.
Mr. Ratner stated he "won't file any motions" and ultimately elected to withdraw from the case over fulfill his legal obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct. Judge Gonzalez Rogers IGNORED MY REQUEST FOR A HEARING, and in her order granting him leave to withdraw about 2 months before my trial, thanked him. I had spent a ton of time trying to find private attorneys and trying to talk to the FPBP, telling them very clearly that I expected to be put back on the list.After Mr. Ratner withdrew, the FPBP refused to put me back on the list. I was forced into trial BY MYSELF, at 1-2 months prior to trial, after 3 months of my time being completely wasted by Mr. Ratner and his law firm.
I went through the appropriate legal process to submit an expert witness. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, as usual, completely ignored my motions, but allowed me to use him after I went through the entire legal process, and paid him thousands of dollars without knowing if I would be granted permission or not, and provided the Court a report stating that the carotid hold was ILLEGAL unless the subject exhibited "assaultive behavior" and that Defendants had never alleged any behavior of mine that constituted "assaultive behavior" (under POST Basic, during 2017). The expert was a Master level instructor at a police academy and former SWAT.
Mr. King provided his pre-trial disclosures, and it contained a document from Rohnert Park police department which had been extensively redacted on the copy that they had provided to me. The new copy contained the contact information for the bystander witness. I called him, and he confirmed that he saw the entire thing, that I had never yelled at the deputies before the first deputy grabbed my arm, and that I was not resisting at any point in time. I told the judge this. She had me call him at a hearing, and both me and Mr. King were allowed a couple of minutes to ask him questions, where he refused to admit that I was even "wiggling" when Mr. King badgered him.
RPPD later sent me the email correspondence between them and Mr. King and Mr. King clearly stated that he had that copy in his records without them sending it, but wanted them to send it to appear official, meaning they had the contact information for the bystander witness the entire time, when they repeatedly lied that they didn't have it.
The judge then refused to allow him to appear at the trial over Zoom (during the height of Covid, even though she let one of the deputies), and refused to summon him to the trial.
Just prior to the trial, the Judge accused me falsely of firing my attorney, and explicitly prohibited me from telling the jury about ANY of the Defendants previous statements about the camera's ability to record (that they had lied about it for 4 years). She explicitly prohibited me from submitting scientific evidence about the carotid hold. She allowed Mr. King to make extremely defamatory false remarks about me and my past which had a huge impact on the jury's perception of things. At a pretrial hearing, we had gone over about 110 documents that I wanted to present at the trial. She vetted about 40 as admissible at the hearing, but at the trial she only let me submit about 4. Defendants were allowed to submit a SECOND expert witness, both of whom worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. The first was Andrew Cash. The second was James Naugle who had been disclosed literally a week before trial, without a report, and without allowing me to take his deposition. She refused to allow me to ask Mr. Naugle about case laws, or about information pertaining to the carotid hold. The Court refused to summon any of my treating physicians, whom I had provided the names and contact information for in my disclosures at the end of Discovery and some in my initial disclosures, and I had complied with Mr. King's written requests for information or objected within the boundaries of the laws (which I quoted and cited), in good faith, and complied with the Court's orders, in good faith.
I had informed the Court that I was scheduled for medical evaluations for brain injury AFTER THE TRIAL. The Court completely ignored this.
So it was my word against theirs. 5 years, at the time of the mistrial, to get a mockery of a trial, and have the jurors' time completely wasted. The jury wrote me a letter thanking me or something, but awarded me nothing.
I was diagnosed with organic brain injury after the trial. I had a similar test prior to the incident and had absolutely no problems and answered every question with no trouble. I now score in the FOURTH PERCENTILE on those areas.
Despite its length, this has been a short summary of all the events over the past 6 years. Much has been summarized, and much has been left out. I tried my best to balance completeness with leaving out irrelevant details.
There is no record of any misconduct on the part of anyone involved in this that is available to any law enforcement agencies or to the public. Nobody has been disciplined. No investigation was ever conducted. I was almost killed and was seriously injured, under a camera, and in front of witnesses, and spent 6 years working with the government. The government has done precisely NOTHING.
The County now routinely retaliates against me whenever we interact, in blatant violation of various laws.

I just want people to know that the Sonoma County government is corrupt. They spent 186 million dollars on a "new courthouse" that is 163k square feet, which works out to $1,100 per square foot, which is over double the second most expensive building I could find was, and over four times the average price per square foot of palaces and museums. And it's just going to look like a giant portable. This is to house some of the most corrupt people in this County, who all make $200-350+k per year (I am including their benefits in that, but not their pension). The entire DA's Office has a vendetta against Civil Rights in general, and will literally knowingly commit criminal violations of laws for the purpose of covering up serious criminal misconduct on the part of Sonoma County employees.
Lynda Hopkins took money from the law enforcement unions, and turns a willfully blind eye to it.
The County Office of Legal Counsel is literally a crime syndicate.
In 2015, the Sheriff's Office had a veritable torture ring in the jail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izcHIv5Y4z8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYrGChrW5HM&list=TLPQMzAwMzIwMjMv0QAOPDy1Lw&index=2
This is just the tip of the iceberg. They lied about the existence of these videos, and "lost" the one where they gave one of the inmates internal bleeding, with a knee to their back.
There was a lawsuit about it. It was called the "Yard Counseling Case". There are news articles about it.
There was an official, written policy, called "Yard Counseling", later its name was changed to "Behavior Counseling" which dictated that for arbitrary punitive measures, Sheriff's Office personnel should extract inmates from their cells individually (which meant slamming their heads onto the door frames on the way out and other abuse), and isolate them, and putting them into "pain compliance" techniques (literally, by definition, torture) for extended periods of time while "counseling" them, which meant wearing no name tags, ski masks and riot gear, carrying a shotgun with them, and insulting them in explicit language for over 20 minutes.
This official written policy was acknowledged by Rob Giordano in a video, where he lies that no inmates where injured, uploaded to YouTube in 2018, when they finally addressed this official written policy, and the practice of torturing inmates without reasonable cause (leading exercise routines, for example).
In 2021, they saw one of the victims of this torture ring, who had sued them and had won, at a peaceful protest, and shot him with a grenade launcher while hiding on a rooftop in the face with a crowd control grenade, which exploded on impact and caused horrific injury that I don't care to describe.
In 2017, I was almost killed by application of a "carotid hold" / lateral vascular neck restraint, by a sheriff's deputy, for literally no reason. A knee was placed on my lower back while I was on the ground on my stomach as well, which caused a serious injury to my kidney, which was the worst injury of my life. I have also been diagnosed with an organic brain injury and cognitive impairment. I was tested for the same type of cognitive impairment before the incident and there is a marked difference, and I have about 30 pages describing the differences I've noticed / troubles I've had in my cognitive functioning. There was no probable cause to arrest me, and I was polite and compliant with all the instructions given to me, and this was confirmed by witnesses. I was punished for invoking my right to remain silent, then my arm was grabbed and yanked up behind me, and then a carotid hold was applied because my body pivoted after the deputy grabbed and yanked my arm.
This occurred UNDER A CAMERA and IN FRONT OF WITNESSES. I called the Sheriff's Office the next day said I want to "make an official complaint in writing". I was transferred to Captain of Internal Affairs, Captain Mark Essick. I repeated my request, verbatim. He responded, verbatim: "We don't do that. Why don't you tell me what happened." I did. I told him it happened right under a camera. He said "The camera can't record." I asked for confirmation. He said the cameras "Don't have recording technology installed."
I asked the County for a claim form. They ignored my request, and instructed me to report the incident to IOLERO. IOLERO requested I meet with Internal Affairs, and I said fine.
Sgt. Andy Cash called me and scheduled me for a meeting at the Sheriff's den. I was made to walk first and guided upstairs to a meeting room, and then patted down for weapons, and the interview was recorded. For 75 minutes I was deposed about happened. He asked me repeatedly about my mental state after the incident. I admitted that I was upset after the incident, and he acted like that justified the whole incident. He explicitly promised to interview the 4 deputies who witnessed the event in addition to the 2 deputies who participated, as well as the arresting officer (who I told him would confirm that I was polite and cooperative), which he agreed "would confirm [my] demeanor", and a bystander witness I told him about.
I complained to IOLERO director Jerry Threet. Mr. Threet agreed that that was inappropriate, then resigned without reviewing the investigation.
For about 4 years review of the investigation was put on hold because IOLERO staff quit, and when more staff was hired, they complained of being understaffed. They had a budget of over a million dollars but only had 2 employees. They only reviewed one case per four months. And they put off "backlogged" cases and focused on new cases. My complaint was finally reviewed by Interim Director Garrick Byers who clearly stated that the investigation was not conducted appropriately. I have the letter from him. That still has never been made public.
After the interview with Internal Affairs, I corresponded with Lynda Hopkins, and she refused to give her opinion on the matter. I specifically complained that the carotid hold was being used recklessly, and it is a dangerous technique. This was in 2018. She forwarded me to Janell Crane, who then had me meet with Kristi Schultz.
I contacted the DA's Office and spoke to Richard Celli (who made $346k in 2017, and has gunned down two unarmed people, and was convicted by a jury in one of the civil cases brought against him by one of the victim's family, but the sentence was overturned by a judge, while working for the SRPD). The first time I spoke to Mr. Celli, he told me that another law enforcement agency should take my case. After that first time, him and the rest of the DA's Office openly refused to comply with the Victims' Rights Laws (CA Con Art. 1 S. 28), and the "policies" (which are legally binding under CA Con Art 5 S. 13) of the Attorney General stating clearly that they are to take complaints from victims if it can't be resolved with the department.
After the first talk with Mr. Celli, I called Rohnert Park Police as I was instructed, and they 3-way called the Sheriff's office and then transferred me. I spent about 30 minutes reporting the incident to a deputy, and he asked me questions in a fair manner. I called RPPD back and talked to the arresting officer and he positively clearly confirmed that I was "polite, calm, compliant, and cooperative" (or something nearly verbatim, I can't remember exactly any more).
Andrew Cash called me the next day, at precisely 7:00 AM. He told me he was driving. He was extremely confrontational with me. He said "There were 6 deputies [referring to the two who used excessive force on me, and 4 witness deputies]. You were combative." This was false. He had only interviewed one of the 4 witness deputies, and the other 3 had provided written statements. They said that they had witnessed force being used, that they had not participated in the use of force to the best of their memory, and that I "did not appear to be resisting". But again, he had promised explicitly to interview the 4 deputy witnesses, and the arresting officer
Internal Affairs exonerated the officers. The letter was signed by Eddie Engram, captain of Internal Affairs. I called Mr. Engram, and had an hour long conversation with him, and he told me to contact Sgt. Cash after April 1st.
I filed a federal claim on the last day that it was due.
Mr. Cash referred me to Legal Counselor, Kara Abelson.
Ms. Abelson spent a year and a half refusing to comply with the Public Records Act, the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Professional Conduct. She refused to provide me documents that I was entitled to under law, including the incident report written by Deputies Jacquelin Fazzio and Virgil Smith, and the recorded interviews that he promised he would conduct, and stated pretty clearly that he had conducted.
Kara Abelson spent a year and a half trying to claim that my federal complaint was time barred by 1 day when it wasn't. The judge (Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers) entertained this and forced me to respond SEVEN TIMES, before she finally admitted that the "law wouldn't allow [her] to dismiss my complaint".
After a year and a half, Kara Abelson finally withdrew from the case after I started citing the Rules of Professional Conduct to her that require her to resign or withdraw from the case rather than defend a civil case where defense isn't warranted. Nobody had disputed any of the allegations I had made. In fact, Eddie Engram had confirmed that what I said happened was not disputed by the evidence.
At some point around this time, either before or after Ms. Abelson withdrew, the 2 incident reports written by the two deputies, the written statements by 3 of the 4 witness deputies, and the recorded interviews with me, the 2 deputies who assaulted me, and 1 of the eye witness deputies, were provided, along with various other records from the facility. In the recorded interview, and the incident report, the deputies admitted that Virgil Smith had applied the carotid hold.
I had also reported the incident to the State Attorney General Public Inquiry Unite (Lupe Zinzin). She had told me, over and over and over, that the local DA's are required to take complaints from civilians in these situations. She refused to call the DA's Office, though. The DA's Office (Richard Celli, Mark Azzouni, David Kahl) refused to take a complaint from me. They (including the receptionists) hung up on me every time I called after no more than 2 minutes, for no reason, transferred me to dead lines, never returned any voicemails I managed to leave, told me explicitly that if I send a complaint, they will throw it away, and didn't care, at all, what the laws were. The receptionists also refuse to provide their names. The Attorney General's Office told me to send them a complaint, so I did. The DA's Office acknowledged receiving the complaint. But later said that they did not have a record of it, meaning they threw it away.
The Attorney General's Office finally agreed to take a complaint from me. It sat on their desk for a year. I finally called them, concerned that evidence was being destroyed, and left a voicemail for Casey Hallinan requesting that they request copies of the physical evidence from the Sheriff's Office. Literally 2 days after that voicemail, a letter was sent to me signed by Sharon Loughner with Casey Hallinan CC'ed on the letter, stating that they would "take no action", and blamed the incident on me. I had not received the letter though, and called and spoke to Ms. Hallinan, who was extremely rude. After that, the Attorney General's Office hang up on me as soon as they find out it's me, for no reason. There has since been a bystander witness who saw the whole thing, and it has come to light that the cameras did record, that no upgrades were ever performed like Ms. Abelson alleged, the cameras do continuously record (as of 2019), and they just lied through their teeth about the camera for 4 straight years. The Attorney General's Office does not care. They violate the laws, and do not care what the laws are.
Sonoma County Office of Legal Counsel attorney Michael King took over after Ms. Abelson withdrew. Right off the bat, Mr. King told me that my motions were deficient - a contention he has repeated frequently, since then. I asked him how. He changed the subject, and to this day has NEVER given any explanation as to how any of my motions are deficient.
He continued to claim that my claim was time barred, filing frivolous motions, in blatant violation of the rules of professional conduct, after I cited the rules to him, constituting explicit legal misconduct.
As I said, the judge finally agreed to open Discovery after a year and a half of full time work trying to fight for my right to not be nearly murdered for no reason.
Lawyers do not take these cases unless there is undeniable proof of blatant guilt, along with undeniable proof of catastrophic injury. Multiple law firms have confirmed that it takes over a million dollars worth of legal work to get these cases to trial.
The judge also promised me a pro bono attorney "if you make it past summary judgment".
The judge scheduled us for Alternative Dispute Resolution hearing with a magistrate judge. Mr. King elicited an offer from me, which I spent about 2 weeks working on, trying to make it as agreeable as possible. But then for the hearing, his written offer was to waive charging me his attorneys fees. The judge confirmed that there was no legal basis for him to do that - it would be illegal. He had been ordered to participate in this hearing, and there was a legal obligation under the Rules of Procedure to try in good faith to settle the case. He violated the order and the rule of procedure (26 (f)).
All of my motions were completely ignored for no reason.
Mr. King / Defendant Virgil Smith lied about the cameras. They said "Denies the existence of cameras capable of recording in the vicinity", in writing, under oath. They never disputed that he put his knee on top of my back with all his weight on it.
Mr. King refused to comply with his Discovery obligations. I had to file about 4 different motions pertaining to their refusal to comply with the laws regarding disclosure of evidence.
Upon receiving an official Discovery request for records of camera equipment, I received a letter signed under by Mr. King (nearly 4 years after the incident) stating that the cameras CAN RECORD. But stating "tasks must be performed" to start the recording function, and stating that all records pertaining to the equipment that was installed at the time HAD BEEN DESTROYED (literally a federal and state crime, a civil tort violation, and a sanctionable act of legal misconduct).
Mr. King refused to schedule any of the witnesses for deposition, demanded MY deposition BEFORE he would even schedule the two deputies who assaulted me, even though I had been requesting depositions with other witnesses for over a month, and refused to schedule anyone else, he refused to answer interrogatories, he refused to provide copies of the policies from the time of the incident. He tried to pass off a weird spreadsheet with the word camera on it as proof that upgrades had been done to the cameras. He refused to provide complete training records for the deputies. He refused to provide details about the training. He refused to provide blueprints of the facility, refused to provide photos of the cameras at the location, refused to provide still images showing which direction the cameras were pointing, refused to provide photos of the deputies so I could schedule depositions efficiently.
The judge erroneously dismissed my Equal Protection claims, construing them as Due Process and Employment Discrimination claims, which are different types of claims than Equal Protection claims against a government actor. The government cannot arbitrarily treat anyone disparately. The Court also dismissed my "Monell" claim against the municipality for their "policies, customs, or practices", but left me leave to amend that claim. And she waited until Discovery opened over 1.5 years into litigation, to do this, forcing me to amend the complaint DURING DISCOVERY which was only open for a limited amount of time, instead of any point in the 1.5 years prior to that.
In the recorded interview with Andrew Cash and one of the witness deputies, she spontaneously states that Mr. Cash instructed her to review the written statements made by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to the interview. Another deputy witness confirmed that Mr. Cash had instructed her to review the written reports by the two deputies who assaulted me prior to her providing Mr. Cash with a written statement as well.
The judge finally retaliated against me, without rational basis, for filing motions, which I had filed because I was being illegally obstructed from preserving evidence, by withdrawing leave to amend regarding the "Monell" claim (I had stated a clear Monell claim to begin with, but the judge literally has an aversion to reading, and relies on guessing, and is biased against pro se litigants; I am summarizing well over 100 pages, if not well over double that, of motions, objections, and replies and the judge's responsive orders).
She did however, finally schedule a hearing with a Discovery referee magistrate. All my motions (and the months of work I was required to do dictated by the various rules) was completely disregarded, and both me and Mr. King were given 2 pages each (double spaced) to go over discovery issues, even though I had filed about 4 different motions about various issues, and he hadn't filed ANY, at that time.
During conference I was required to do in accordance with the Rules, Mr. King repeatedly tried to establish that I had committed crimes during the course of conferring which was my legal obligation, without having any rational basis to believe what he was trying to establish. He demanded evidence that would exist, and he kept repeating every lie he could come up with to the judge. The judge would either get annoyed at me if I addressed any of Mr. King's baseless accusations, or take his statements at face value for being 100% true.
Mr. King finally "compromised" and agreed to schedule depositions with me (as long as Mr. King wanted to) and the two deputies who had assaulted me (for 25 minutes each or something) all simultaneously, but refused to schedule anyone else, even though this was grossly advantageous to him. One of the eye witness deputies later confirmed that he had "consulted" her over 4 times prior to the trial. During this deposition, Mr. King asked me where a family member of mine works. He had spent about 30-40 minutes trying to convince me that I can tell him anything, that the entire record was designated confidential, that I had nothing to worry about - and at a deposition, you are obligated to answer the questions unless they are harassing. Mr. King also requested contact information for counselors from over 10 years ago, and that was the only question I didn't answer - I told him to provide the request in writing. At some point after that, I told Mr. King to not contact my family member at her workplace, and Mr. King responded "unless you fully and completely cooperate" with his request for contact information for counselors from 10 years+ ago.
At the hearing, the Discovery Magistrate (Donna M. Ryu) discussed matters only with Mr. King, without including me. He told her that the 4 eye witness deputies "saw nothing" and "weren't there" (verbatim) trying to get her to deny me my request to take their deposition. She asked him if he would get them to sign fresh "sworn declarations", "under oath" (Judge Ryu's words, verbatim) stating this. Mr. King said yes, absolutely, he would. Judge Ryu asked me "Would that be okay?" I said "No." She started laughing, and asked me why, and I explained that I had explicitly described various interactions with them that had taken place while the carotid hold was still being applied to me, and that they had stated in their written statements that they had witnessed force being used, and that was "not resisting". She confirmed that this was all true with Mr. King and that he already knew all of this, and ordered him to cooperate with scheduling them for deposition.
After that, they went back to discussing matters only with eachother, and I was excluded from discussion. This was an hour long hearing, and at about the 45 minute mark, Mr. King was again lying to the magistrate judge, and when he had finished, I interjected, "That's not true". Judge Ryu shouted "Stop! Stop stop stop stop stop!" And then very assertively explained to me the importance of not interrupting people for the convenience of the court reporter / transcriber. I was excluded from the rest of the hearing.
At some point at either this hearing or the next one, I cited the legal requirement for the parties to disclose contact information for witnesses. I cited the rule of procedure. Judge Ryu responded, "Mr. King is a lawyer!" as if that alone justified his refusal to provide me contact information for witnesses.
Mr. King refused to provide both written statements from the eye witness deputies, and to schedule them for deposition, and stated that if he provided written statements, they would be copied and pasted versions of the same statements previously provided, signed under oath (nowhere saying that they "saw nothing" or "weren't there").
Mr. King kept threatening to go to my family member's workplace unless I provided him contact information for counselors from 10+ years ago, DURING a DEPOSITION, without him providing any written request for the information.
He also interfered with scheduling the witnesses for deposition, with the Court reporter that I had hired, disregarded the schedule that I had set, and set them each for 30 minutes, which raised the cost of deposition from an estimated about $700 to about $4,000, and said this was my one and only chance.
The Federal Pro Bono Project / the Justice & Diversity Center is an organization that receives seven million dollars a year in public funding and is under contract with the Federal District Court to work with the Court to provide legal consultation to pro se litigants. I had about 19 appointments with them, about 18 with Abby Herzberg, and 1 with Rosemarie Maliekel. Ms. Herzberg was precisely 15 minutes late to every single appointment, repeatedly gave me horrible advice ("just wait", do nothing, "don't file this", despite admitting that the entire motion was valid, directly causing excessive delay and the spoliation of crucial evidence). She also yelled at me aggressively on two occasions because I had brought up state laws, which were being currently violated against me, because the Court had dismissed my "state claims" because Sonoma County refused to supply with a state tort claim form when I first asked, reasoning that was not relevant to the state laws being currently violated against me. After Ms. Herzberg yelled at me the second time, I requested an appointment with Ms. Maliekel. Ms. Maliekel spent the entire appointment ranting at me about irrelevant issues, and kept talking over me and interrupting me. I was polite but eventually asked "can I finish what I was saying?" She responded "No!" and kept ranting at me.
I had repeatedly asked about how to properly get medical evidence, and about expert witnesses. Ms. Herzberg ignored my questions and spent nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment reading through the rules, without letting me speak at all, even to summarize the relevant sections of the rules that I had read.
On a video on their webpage (on the Court's website, because they are a "partner project" with the Court), Abby Herzberg explicitly demonstrates a clear understanding of the fact that the Court provides funding for expert witnesses, despite ignoring my questions about and spending nearly the entirety of almost every single appointment either reading rules or pretending to.
Discovery was closed.
Mr. King rehashed the legally baseless and frivolous "time barred" claim in a Motion for Summary Judgment. I was required to respond to it twice. I was required to answer all his "undisputed material facts" under threat of terminating my entire case, but he refused to answer mine. He lied over and over to the judges. As I said, the judge ruled that the laws "wouldn't allow her to" dismiss my entire case and rejected his Motion for Summary Judgement.
The Court ordered the Federal Pro Bono Project (FPBP) to put me on a list for attorneys seeking clients. Ms. Herzberg told me that if I filed any motions, that the FPBP would not cooperate with the Court's order, until 1 month before my trial, instead of 6 months before. She also said that a law firm had reached out to them about my case over a month prior to that, and that the staff at the FPBP had not followed up. My filing privileges were then revoked by the Court.
An attorney, David Ratner, reached out to me, and scheduled an initial consultation, over Zoom, at which he stated he "hates cops", and gave a showing of being enthusiastic. I explicitly told him that I wanted to make sure we were on the same page as far as what to "aim for". I told him that I had been working for FIVE YEARS, that I had almost died, that I had suffered two different extremely serious injuries. I told him that what I asked for was consistent with the most similar case (the Esa Wroth case of 2013) that I knew of (an ask of three million dollars). This was coincidental. I was not aware of the Esa Wroth case when I came up with that number. I agonized over that, and spent a lot of time trying to come up with a fair amount, and described the methods I used to come up with that number in detail in court documents. Mr. Ratner explicitly agreed to aim for that.
Mr. Ratner, and his partner, Shelley Mollineaux, who was set to represent me at trial under Mr. Ratner's supervision, then both went dark for over a month. They ignored my emails, voicemails, and messages that I left with their receptionists. There was a hearing, and then Mr. Ratner emailed me demanding "all the documents" that I had. I had over 50 gb of files across thousands of files, and spent about a month working with his paralegals sending them batches of files, and providing all the information they asked me for. Mr. Ratner forwarded me an email from Mr. King where King accused me of violating a court order regarding providing medical providers and the physical addresses of my entire family and my friends, which was false -- the Court had ordered me to provide him CONTACT information, at a second hearing, which wasn't significant, and I had fully and completely complied in good faith with all the Court's orders. Mr. Ratner accused me of not sending him "anything", after I had spent at least several weeks with his paralegals sending them batches of files and information, and he simultaneously threatened to ask the judge for leave to withdraw.
There had been major delays with medical evaluation due in large part to Covid, as well as delayed discovery of brain injury, which is very common, and other factors.
With trial set, Mr. Ratner forwarded me an offer from Defendants for $5,000. Upon discussion (which was 100% in email because he refused to talk over the phone and Ms. Mollineaux completely ignored me), he accused me of not doing Discovery right. I pointed him to the video I referred to earlier, which I had found since Mr. Ratner took my case, but wasn't aware of when I was interacting with the FPBP, where the FPBP (Abby Herzberg), and various District Judges from the Court I was litigating in, state that it is general policy (and it is official policy under the Court's General Order 25) to REOPEN DISCOVERY when a pro bono attorney comes onto the case, and to FUND DEPOSITION AND EXPERT WITNESS FEES.
Mr. Ratner stated he "won't file any motions" and ultimately elected to withdraw from the case over fulfill his legal obligations under the Rules of Professional Conduct. The Court thanked him and granted him permission to withdraw. The FPBP refused to put me back on the list. I was forced into trial BY MYSELF, at 1-2 months prior to trial, after 2-3 months of my time being completely wasted by Mr. Ratner and his law firm.
I went through the appropriate legal process to submit an expert witness. The Court, as usual, completely ignored my motions, but allowed me to use him after I went through the entire legal process, and paid him thousands of dollars without knowing if I would be granted permission or not, and provided the Court a report stating that the carotid hold was ILLEGAL unless the subject exhibited "assaultive behavior" and that Defendants had never alleged any behavior of mine that constituted "assaultive behavior" (under POST Basic). The expert was a Master level instructor at a police academy and former SWAT.
Mr. King provided his pre-trial disclosures, and it contained a document from Rohnert Park police department which had been extensively redacted on the copy that they had provided to me. The new copy contained the contact information for the bystander witness. I called him, and he confirmed that he saw the entire thing, that I had never yelled at the deputies before the first deputy grabbed my arm, and that I was not resisting at any point in time. I told the judge this. She had me call him at a hearing, and both me and Mr. King were allowed a couple of minutes to ask him questions, where he refused to admit that I was even "wiggling" when Mr. King badgered him.
The judge then refused to allow him to appear over Zoom, and refused to summon him to the trial.
At the trial, the Judge accused me falsely of firing my attorney, and explicitly prohibited me from telling the jury that the Defendants had LIED about the camera's ability to record. She explicitly prohibited me from submitting scientific evidence about the carotid hold. She allowed Mr. King to make extremely defamatory false remarks about me and my past which had a huge impact on the jury's perception of things. At a pretrial hearing, we had gone over about 110 documents that I wanted to present at the trial. She vetted about 40 as admissible at the hearing, but at the trial she only let me submit about 5. Defendants were allowed to submit a SECOND expert witness, both of whom worked for the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office. The first was Andrew Cash. The second was James Naugle who had been disclosed literally a week before trial, without a report, and without allowing me to take his deposition. She refused to allow me to ask Mr. Naugle about case laws, or about information pertaining to the carotid hold. The Court refused to summon any of my treating physicians, whom I had provided the names and contact information for in my disclosures at the end of Discovery and some in my initial disclosures, and I had complied with Mr. King's written requests for information or objected within the boundaries of the law, in good faith, and complied with the Court's orders, in good faith.
I had informed the Court that I was scheduled for medical evaluations for brain injury AFTER THE TRIAL. The Court completely ignored this.
So it was my word against theirs. 5 years, at the time of the mistrial, to get a mockery of a trial, and have the jurors' time completely wasted. The jury wrote me a letter thanking me or something, but awarded me nothing.
I was diagnosed with organic brain injury after the trial. I had a similar test prior to the incident and had absolutely no problems and answered every question with no trouble. I now score in the FOURTH PERCENTILE on those areas.
Despite its length, this has been a short summary of all the events over the past 6 years. Much has been summarized, and much has been left out. I tried my best to balance completeness with leaving out irrelevant details.
There is no record of any misconduct on the part of anyone involved in this that is available to any law enforcement agencies or to the public. Nobody has been disciplined. No investigation was ever conducted. I was almost killed and was seriously injured, under a camera, and in front of witnesses, and spent 6 years working with the government. The government has done precisely NOTHING.
The County now routinely retaliates against me whenever we interact, in blatant violation of various laws.

1971 was an exciting year for the townspeople of Fouke, Miller County, Arkansas. It was almost 52 years ago that they discovered they had their very own monster. Named by a local reporter, Jim Powell of the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News, the press had a hey-day and the newly named Fouke Monster even had a series of movies made about it. The monster inspired a yearly festival called the Fouke Monster Festival meant to bring up discussion and talk about lore regarding the local monster as well as other cryptids. All for a good cause of course, the money goes directly to the local school district. That being said, let’s take a little dive into the history and tale of the Fouke, AR monster.
A very small town, located 15 miles southeast of Texarkana, TX-Texarkana, AR, Fouke is still considered to be a part of the metropolitan area. It lies along Hwy. 71 and isn’t very far from the Red River. Originally inhabited by the Caddo Native Americans, like so many places time changes everything. However, this isn’t a tale about the history of Fouke, it is a tale of something or someone who scared some locals enough to simply leave the area and the legend is still told to this day. Let’s take a step back in time and re-visit this story…or is it just a story?
Believe it or not, per the Memphis Enquirer, a large, furry creature had been seen in the vicinity in 1851, and the Caddo Gazette reported on it in 1856. So the monster may not be as new to the area as previously thought. The next reports came in at the much later date of 1946 and some locals in Fouke claimed to have seen it in 1964 although it was not reported. These reports called it the Jonesville Monster as these sightings were closer to Jonesville (near Fouke). There was an alleged sighting by a young teenage boy in 1955 who described it as having reddish-brown hair, sniffing the air, and not reacting to birdshot when fired upon. Joe Nickell, an investigator, was of the opinion that it was a misidentified brown bear - which could be a definite possibility.
There have been several different reports on what it actually looked like but they do bear some similarities. Such as being large, bipedal, and with long dark hair. Over the years it has been described as anywhere from 7’-10’ tall, weighing 250-300 pounds or on the higher end up to 800 pounds. Many described it as having a galloping gait, and swinging its arms like an ape. Aside from the disturbing description it was also described as stinking like a combination of a skunk and a wet dog. I simply do not want to imagine the smell, lol. To top it off it was also described as having bright red, half-dollar size eyes.
What really brought it to the public attention was an attack on the home of Bobby and Elizabeth Ford on May 2, 1971. At the time of the attack Dave Hall was the news director of KTFS in Texarkana and Jim Powell was a reporter for the Texarkana Gazette and Daily News. Powell received a call from Hall about something strange going on down in Fouke and they decided to make the trip there. An ongoing story that in time became a legend. What more could a reporter ask for?
According to Powell, when they arrived the Fords were moving out after having only lived there a week. Packing their things into a waiting U-Haul, they were, excuse the bad pun, hauling ass outta there. From what the Fords reported to the police, Bobby and his brother Don had been doing a little hunting out back of the house when they heard a woman scream. They immediately took off for the house and were completely horrified. While they had been out doing their thing, Elizabeth was lying on the couch and the creature, which she assumed was a bear, reached in through a screen window and was chased away by her husband and brother-in-law. The Ford brothers fired seven shots and thought they hit it although no traces of blood were found. But, three-toed footprints were found around the house, scratch marks on the porch, and damage to a window and some siding were located.
Powell and Hall talked to someone at the hospital who told them that, “This guy is in shock.” I believe they were referring to Bobby Ford. Ford said he saw a 7’ tall creature that was 3’ across the chest. He also said he felt a hairy arm around his neck and he was so scared he ran, busting through a glass and wood front door.
The brothers said they shot it seven times and were pretty sure they had wounded it. All of their ammo had been used, but still - no blood. Powell said he dubbed it the Fouke Monster because of Elizabeth Ford’s description of the monster. When Powell got to the house the morning after the attack, he went behind the house, saw unusual footprints, and small saplings broken off headed into a wooded area. Some people thought it was a joke, others were of the opinion that when a traveling circus had come through the town years before, some of the animals had escaped and that was what was seen. Local officials were overwhelmed by the sheer number of monster hunters, calls, and tips. Miller County Sheriff, Leslie Greer, invoked a “no guns” policy in order to protect people from being accidentally hurt or killed.
A month after the Ford sighting, archaeologist Frank Schambach stated that in his opinion there was a 99% chance that the tracks were man made. He said that the tracks couldn’t be from an ape because all primates (including hominids) have five toes, there was no history of primates in the area, and apes are all diurnal, not nocturnal as the Fouke Monster appeared to be.
In May, 1971, D. C. Woods, Jr., Wilma Woods, and Mrs. R. H. Sedgass, reported something that resembled an ape crossing Hwy. 71, with more reports popping up from others. This included giant footprints showing up in Willie E. Smith’s soybean field located behind a local gas station. What was odd was that they were in a straight line, avoiding plants. According to one local, it was pure chaos. Non-locals were popping out of the woodwork. Little Rock, AR KAAY offered a bounty of $1,090.00 and a local man chipped in $200.00. A local woman who was sitting on her front porch said she saw the monster in a field across from her home. However, three jokers got caught when they claimed they were attacked by the monster when in fact they had likely just gotten into a fight fueled by alcohol and were fined $59.00 apiece for filing a false report.
By 1974, interest had dropped but started up again when tracks were allegedly found by two brothers in Russellville, AR, in March of 1978. Sightings were noted in Center Ridge, AR, and in July of 1978, there was another sighting in Crossett, AR. This time there were missing livestock and dog attacks. In 1991, it was supposed to have been seen jumping from a bridge. There were around 40 sightings in 1997, and in 1998 it was reported to have been sighted while crossing a dry creek bed about 5 miles away from Fouke.
Greer was Sheriff from 1967-1974 and said that he recalled hearing about the monster as far back as 1946. In his words, “"I was campaigning for tax assessor and stopped to talk to a lady sitting on her front porch," he said. "She lived about halfway between Fouke and the Below Bridge. She told me that she saw some kind of animal go down in the field in a low, bushy place. She said it looked kind of like a man, and walked like a man, but she didn't think it was a man." Of course, he never gave it much thought until 1971 when the Ford family was attacked. Most reports were hoaxes but there was serious concern that an innocent person would be harmed by the horde of monster hunters in town. There ended up being a lot of hurt feelings over trespassing on private property.
By 1986, most officials were of the opinion that the tracks were man-made. Greer’s colleague at the time, Chief Deputy H.L. Phillips said he hadn’t taken a call in years about it but he refused to argue with people who say they did see it because they were respectable, responsible people. He did state he didn’t believe in it but there were those who did and still do. Keep in mind, as Skeptoid states, all the evidence is anecdotal with not a thing that is able to be tested. It makes for a great story though!
So, what do you think? There are things we don’t know about or are just discovering. Could the Fouke Monster be the real thing or is it only a folk-tale? I would love to hear your thoughts and thanks for reading!
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouke_Monster
https://web.archive.org/web/20030803215531/http://texarkanagazette.com/articles/2001/06/24/export15709.txt
https://skeptoid.com/

Early March I was helping family clear land to sell and got into a verbal altercation with my step father's horrible siblings with superfund levels of toxic.
They called the sheriff and we were pulled over, he said they accused me of spitting on them. I explained a verbal altercation, that I didn't recall spitting, he took a statement, and we went on our way.
Earlier today I get a call from an investigator with the county who said the sheriff should've issued a class c misdemeanor citation. He confirmed my address and said to expect in a week via certified mail.
Investigator said the other party accused me of spitting on them and were demanding felony charges be brought up.
I'm a bit shook as this is the most trouble I've gotten into. What to expect, best courses of action, etc is very appreciative.

Royalty/Nobles
UK
​

1. Prince Andrew, will have his own segment (These listed below are close to him and Epstein)

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• Simon Case: Private Secretary to Prince William as of 2018. Previously was in charge of figuring out the border issue in Northern Ireland and Ireland post-Brexit. British civil servant for over a decade, including as a policy adviser for the Ministry of Defence.
  
• Merivale-Austen, Bruce: Managing Partner of DM Partners Asia, a private wealth management firm. Plays polo every summer with Prince William and Prince Harry (https://www.thailandtatler.com/people/brouce-merivale-austin
  
• Gibbs, Emma: Former girlfriend of Prince Andrew. Gibbs was introduced to Prince Andrew by her good friend, Ghislaine Maxwell. Gibbs worked as a PR consultant.
  
• Harvey Victoria: Ex-girlfriend of Prince Andrew, Hervey is an English model and socialite. Although her relationship with Andrew didn’t work out, she remained in his inner circle. In 2000, she attended a dinner with Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, and Jeffrey Epstein (source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9844083/lady-victoria-hervey-jeffrey-epstein-too-old/). Hervey is also a friend of Ghislaine Maxwell, who introduced her to Epstein and “set her up in one of Epstein’s apartments in New York.” Hervey is the daughter of Victor Hervey, 6th Marquess of Bristol, businessman and member of the House of Lords.
  
• Jameel, Mohammed: Saudi Arabian businessman. CEO of Abdul Latif Jameel, a collective of family-owned businesses that specialize in transportation, investing, and real estate. Royal pervert Prince Andrew infamously partied on Jameel’s yacht during the 2011 London riots (source: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/prince-andrew-frolicks-on-yacht-with-mystery-147496
  
• Manconi, John: Businessman who hosts super exclusive charity polo events attended by Prince Charles, Harry, and Andrew (https://variety.com/2002/scene/vpage/royals-have-splendid-time-1117868882/).
  

​

1. Caprice: Likely refers to Caprice Bourret, a former model and former love interest of Prince Andrew around 2000-2001.
   
2. Sir Rufus Albermarle
   
3. Earl Charles Spencer Aldrup
   
4. Carella Alun-Jones
   
5. Jeremy and Deborah Alun-Jones
   
6. Simon Astaire Hollywood and British Royal Family agent. Specializes in representation, celebrity endorsement, and public relations.
   
7. Sir Anthony Bamford and Lady C Anthony is a billionaire British businessman. Chairman of JCB, which provides equipment for construction, agriculture, etc. Has donated more than £4m personally and through JCB companies to the Conservative Party. Has close ties to David Cameron, Tony Blair, and Prince Charles. Bamford was mentioned in the Panama Papers as having offshore accounts. Lady Carole Bamford is his wife and a successful businesswoman.
   
8. James & Lucinda Bruce: James is a businessman who comes from nobility. His father was a baron. His 2nd wife, Lucinda, is a producer.
   
9. Lord and Lady Beaumon Likely refers to the late Tim Beaumont of Whitley and his wife, Baroness Mary Rose. Tim was a UK politician in the Liberal Party and, later on, the Green Party. Six generations of his paternal side sat in the House of Commons (source: Irish Times) He was also an Anglican priest. Mary Rose is the cousin of Antony Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon and (now deceased) husband of Princess Margaret.
   
10. Baron Bentinck Dutch and British nobility.
    
11. Robert Byng Descendant of admirals, viscounts, and earls. Current property owner of Wrotham Park, an English country house that hosts social events for the wealthy and has been used as a filming location for many movies.
    
12. Sir Nickey Caledon The 7th Earl of Caledon. Received his knighthood in 2015 when he was appointed Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO).
    
13. Mario Cabo-Platero is an Italian journalist and served as editor of the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore for 30 years. Ariadne is the daughter of Lord and Lady Beaumont
    
14. George & Pauline Case: Pauline Case (maiden name Pauline Astor) is a Viscountess and daughter of William Astor, 3rd Viscount Astor
    
15. Marina Cowdray: Wife of Michael Pearson, 4th Viscount of Cowdray. Daughter of John Cordle. Sister of Rachel and Rupert Cordle.
    
16. Sophie Crabbe British socialite
    
17. d’Arenberg, Prince Pierre: Family lineage can be traced back 1000 years. European royalty. Extremely wealthy not because of his ties to nobility, but because his mother, Margaret Bedford, was an heiress to Standard Oil (Exxon).
    
18. d’Uzes, Jacques De crussol: The 17th Duke of Uze
    
19. Dartmouth, William: The 10th Earl of Dartmouth. Member of the European Parliament from 2009-2019. Became a stepbrother of Princess Diana when his mother embarked on a 2nd marriage with Diana’s father, John Spencer.
    
20. Derby Earl / Cntess Cass & Ted: Edward Stanley (known informally as Teddy) is the 19th Earl of Derby. Caroline Stanley is Ted’s wife. She was a socialite during the ‘90s and is the daughter of Robin Neville, the 10th Baron Braybrooke
    
21. Dolbey, Alex & Suzie: Suzie Dolbey (nee Murray-Philipson) is the daughter of the recently deceased Robin Murray-Philipson, who was the descendant of the Viscounts Elibank. Alex Dolbey has been the director of several management and investment companies.
    
22. Duchess of York: Former wife of Prince Andrew. Mother of Princess Beatrice and Eugenie.
    
23. Elliot, Ben: Current Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party in the UK and nephew of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (Prince Charles’s current wife). Elliot is also co-founder of Quintessentially Group, a hospitality group that specializes in leisure, travel, and tourism. Epstein has several ties to this group. Elliot’s spokesman has said that Elliot never met Epstein. However, Elliot has been a dinner guest of Ghislaine Maxwell in New York.
    
24. Fairfax, The Hon Rupert: Hon. Rupert Alexander James Fairfax is the son of Thomas Brian McElvie Fairfax, 13th Lord of Fairfax of Cameron. Rupert is currently Managing Director of Fairfax Saddles, which was awarded the Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2018. This is the highest business award in the UK.
    
25. Fiennes, Martin: The heir apparent to the Baron Saye and Sele, a title of peerage in England. Lives in Broughton Castle. Cousin of actor Ralph Fiennes.
    
26. Fiennes, Suzzana: A British artist who works exclusively with Prince Charles. Susannah is the twin sister of Martin Fiennes and cousin of actor Ralph.
    
27. Freud, Mathew: Matthew Freud is the head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm. Matthew is also the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud’s first wife, Caroline Hutton, went on to marry the 9th Earl of Spencer (Princess Diana’s brother). Elisabeth Murdoch, his 2nd wife (now divorced), is the daughter of Rupert Murdoch.
    
28. Robert Olney
    
29. Mr and Mrs Ellingworth
    
30. Lady Amanda
    
31. Patrick and Marla Fairweather
    
32. Gary Ramsey
    
33. Ashley & Allegra Hicks: Ashley is the Godson of Prince Philip, second cousin of Prince Charles, and an interior designer.
    
34. Viscount William Astor: Member of the House of Lords, which creates and shapes laws. There are approximately 800 current members. Chairman of television production company Silvergate Media. Member of the Astor family, which specialized in the fur trade, real estate, and drug smuggling in the early 19th century.
    
35. Tamara Beckwith: English socialite
    
36. Annabelle Bond OBE[1] (born 1969) is a British socialite,[2][3] international adventurer and activist,[4] who came to prominence after climbing the summit of Mount Everest on 15 May 2004, making her the fourth British woman to do so.
    
37. Glentworth, Edmund & Emily: Edmund Pery is the 7th Earl of Limerick and was formerly known as Viscount Glentworth. He worked in British government until becoming director of Deutsche Bank. Emily is Edmund’s wife.
    
38. Granby, David: David Charles Robert Manners is the 11th Duke of Rutland. He also goes by the Marquess of Granby. Granby is a high-profile supporter of the UK Independence Party and has hosted fundraising events at his ancestral home, Belvoir Castle. Employed Harvey Proctor, the former Conservative Parliament member who had to resign because he had sexual relations with underage male prostitutes, as his personal secretary.
    
39. Grenfell, Natasha: Daughter of Lord St Just, heir to a banking fortune and Wilbury Park mansion. Her mother was actress and one-time Tennessee Williams love interest, Maria Britneva. Natasha is a socialite who has is friends with royalty, actors, and musicians
    
40. Hambro, Clementine: Great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill who also served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana when she was just five-years-old. Her father, Richard, was a British heir and investment banker. K
    
41. Hanover, Ernst & chantal: Prince Ernst Hanover is the head of the royal House of Hanover. The House of Hanover has produced six British monarchs, including King George III and Queen Victoria. The current British monarchy, the Windsors, are actually of German and British descent, which is why these family trees intersect. Most notably, the House of Hanover is perhaps the most important of the Black Nobility families. There have been some fantastic threads on Reddit about the Black Nobility.
    
42. Hanson, Brook: Adopted son of British industrialist, Lord Hanson, Brook died in 2014 at the age of 50.
    
43. Hanson, Lord & Lady: British industrialist who made a fortune in the ‘80s as a Trade and Industry
    
44. Secretary in close friend Margaret Thatcher’s administration. His wife, Geraldine, was a former model. They are both dead.
    
45. Hanson, The Hon Robert: British financier and eldest son of Lord Hanson. Chairman of Hanson Family Holdings, a private investment firm. In the 1980s, Robert worked as a banker at NM Rothschild & Sons before returning to his father’s company. Before getting married, Hanson dated socialite Anouska de Georgiou, who became the first British woman to accuse Jeffrey Epstein of raping her as a teenager (source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-british-teen-model-was-lured-jeffrey-epstein-s-web-n1056901. Odd that Robert Hanson, his brother Brook, and his parents would have wanted anything to do with Epstein.
    
46. Heseltine, Rupert: Businessman and heir to Haymarket Media Group. Son of Baron Michael Heseltine.
    
47. Hicks, India: A fashion model in the ‘80s and ‘90s, India Hicks is a good friend of Ghislaine Maxwell. Descendant of the Mountbatten family, a British dynasty (although much of their background is German). Granddaughter of the much-decorated war hero, Lord Mountbatten (Prince Charles’s mentor), who, according to FBI files, was “a homosexual with a perversion for young boys” (source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/9745399/lord-mountbatten-fbi-dossier-prince-charles/). Prince Charles is her second cousin and Godfather.
    
48. Hill, Anthony: Son of Robin Hall, 8th Marquess of Downshire and Juliet Weld-Forester, daughter of 7th Baron Forester.
    
49. Hoffman, Hetty: Married to Robin Dundas, Earl of Ronaldshay. Lady Ronaldshay is a patron and ambassador for Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice, a UK-based charity that provides care for terminally ill babies and children up to five years old. A good friend of Ben Holland-Martin
    
50. Linley, David: Princess Margaret’s son, Queen Elizabeth II’s nephew, and first cousin of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew. Linley is a furniture maker and the 2nd Earl of Snowdon. He used to be the Chairman of Christie’s auction house in the UK.
    
51. Manners, Eddie: Lord Manners is the son of the 10th Earl of Rutland and an investment banker. He lives at Haddon Hall, a beautiful old mansion.
    
52. Manners, Miss Lucy: An interior designer who is the cousin of Eddie (mentioned above) and the Duke of Rutland. Lucy is a very close friend of Sarah, Duchess of York (Prince Andrew’s first wife), a close friend of Epstein’s, and even served as her lady-in-waiting. Manners lives at Eastnor Castle, which houses 96 rooms.
    
53. Manners, Terssa: Teresa is the daughter of the 10th Duke of Rutland and sister of Eddie and the 11th Duke of Rutland. She was the cover girl for Tatler and posed for Vogue, two magazines that feature many Epstein contacts.
    
54. Menzies, Kate: Close friend of Princess Diana and the Royal Family. The Menzies are millionaires because of their newsagents and distribution group.
    
55. Milford Haven George & Clare: George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven. Second cousin of Prince Charles. Founded uSwitch, a website that allows you to compare suppliers of various services. Sold the company for $400 million. George’s grandfather was the older brother of Lord Mountbatten, alleged pedophile and father figure/mentor to Prince Charles. George’s wife, Clare, was the Social Editor of Tatler magazine (there it is again!) from 1995-2005.
    
56. Monckton, Rosa: Former President of Tiffany & Co. jewelry company. Daughter of a Viscount. Princess Diana was Monckton’s best friend and the Godmother of one of her children. Rosa also serves as a fundraiser for and on the board of several charities, most of which focus on children. Monckton is a patron for Downside Up, a charity for children with Down Syndrome, with actor Ralph Fiennes, who is also in Epstein’s contacts (http://downsideupcharity.org/node/64). She also raises money for KIDS charity out of London where Liz Hurley (also in Epstein’s contacts) is a patron, along with Elton John, David Cameron, David Furnish, Cherie Booth, and Channel 4 News presenter Cathy Newman (https://www.kids.org.uk/Pages/FAQs/Category/patrons). Epstein once offered Monckton to bring her daughter, who has Down Syndrome, to his house in Palm Beach (https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2003/03/jeffrey-epstein-200303?currentPage=1
    
57. Murray Threipland, Tercious/Claire: Owner of Dunbeath Castle. Claire left her first husband, Henry Herbert, The 17th Earl of Pembroke, to be with Tertius in 1981. Claire’s daughter, Emma, was a bridesmaid at the first marriage of Camila Parker Bowles (now Prince Charles’s wife).
    
58. Negrete, Jelitza: A Countess and descendant of European nobility
    
59. Newman, Hetty: Second wife of the 7th Earl of Caledon.
    
60. Noel, Hon Thomas: Son of Anthony Noel, 5th Earl of Gainsborough
    
61. O’Donnell, Mr Carletto: Financier. Friend of Princess Michael of Kent (King George V’s grandson)
    
62. Oxenberg Christina marc Yaggi: Christina is a writer and fashion designer. Her mother is Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. Her grandparents were Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark. Due to all of the inbreeding between European royals, Christine is a cousin of the Royal Family. Oxenberg used to attend dinner parties at Epstein’s and was also friends with Ghislaine (https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a30222833/christina-oxenberg-instagram-patreon-memoi). Oxenberg intends to talk to the FBI about Epstein and Maxwell (https://www.tatler.com/article/christina-oxenberg-speaks-to-fbi-about-ghislaine-maxwell-and-jeffrey-epstein). Marc Yaggi is Executive Director of Waterkeeper Alliance, where Oxenberg was once a writer.
    
63. Palumbo, Mr James: Baron Palumbo of Southwark is an entrepreneur and a member of the House of Lords. Co-founder of Ministry of Sound nightclub
    
64. Palumbo, Peter: Father of James (above). Baron Palumbo is a property developer who sat on the House of Lords from 1991-2019. Former polo teammate and close friend of Prince Charles until they had a falling out. Confidant of Princess Diana. Godfather of Princess Beatrice of York, the elder daughter of Prince Andrew. Peter denies ever having met Epstein.
    
65. Pearson Hon Charles: Son of the Third Viscount Cowdray and owner of the 53,000 acre Dunecht estate
    
66. Pease, Simon & Clem: Simon was a successful custodian of the family’s Underley Estate. He was also a High Sheriff of Cumbria. Passed away in 2007. Clementine was his wife.
    
67. Puttnam, David: British film producer, educator, and member of the House of Lords. Puttnam was friends with Princess Diana before her passing.
    

Spanish Royalty
​

1. Jose Aznar (Prime Minister)
   
2. Fernando de Cordova Hohenlohe: Spanish nobility. Current Marquis of Alboloduy.
   
3. Joaquin Fernandez de Arion: Spanish royalty. The 10th Duke of Arion. His mother is Princess Beatriz zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Married to Diana Langes-Swarovski, the great-great granddaughter of Daniel Swarovski, founder of the crystal manufacturer.
   

Swedish Royalty
​

1. Henry & Tatjana D’abo d’abo, d’Abo is the grandson of the 9th Duke of Rutland Tatjana is his wife. Henry is the chairman of Wilton Payments Ltd, a private company that helps with financial intermediation. He and Christopher O’Neill are the primary shareholders of the company. O’Neill is Tatjana’s half-brother, a British-American financier, and husband to Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland , a daughter of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
   
2. d’abo, Mrs. Jennifer: British entrepreneur who passed away in 2003. d’Abo was once married to Peter Cadbury from the family of the famous chocolate company. Peter did not work for the company, but he and Jennifer d’Abo had a son together. Their son, Joel Cadbury, became owner of the Groucho Club, a watering hole often frequented by famous people. Three years after Cadbury sold the club, their website became the center of a child pornography scandal (link to story: https://www.sott.net/article/242698-Groucho-Clubs-website-forum-hit-by-child-pornography-scandal
   

French Royalty
​

1. Pierre D’ArenBerg
   
2. de Clermont-Tonnerre, Hermine: A French princess who used to have a penchant for partying. The only daughter of Charles Henri, 11th Duke of Clermont-Tonnerre, Hermine was one of 500 guests invited to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother’s 100th birthday back in 2000.
   
3. Louis Albert de Broglie French prince and entrepreneur The Prince Gardener
   
4. Hauteville, Marc de: Manages Soc Civile du Frayssinet, a real estate company based out of France. There is very little information other than this. Both of his parents appear to be members of noble families - the Hautevilles and the Cazenoves - who have historical ties to the Du Ponts.
   
5. Karella, Kalliope: Wife of Prince Pierre d’Arenberg. Kalliope is a good friend of Ghislaine Maxwell.
   

Saudi Royalty
​

1. Amr Al-Dabbagh

Jordan Royalty
​

1. Firyal Princess: Jerusalem-born Jordanian princess who was once married to Prince Muhammad bin Talal. Firyal was named an UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador in 1992. Princess Firyal launched the International Hope Foundation in 1994 for the benefit of homeless and street children. Firyal holds positions with several museums (The Louvre, The Tate, MOMA, and Guggenheim), as well as positions with Columbia University, New York Public Library, United Nation Association, and International Rescue Committee.

German Royals
​

1. Debbie & Bola Von Bismarck: Leopold (“Bolle”) von Bismarck is the great-grandson of Otto von Bismarck, the first chancellor of Germany. Debbie is a former model and Leopold’s wife. Model Kate Moss is currently engaged to their son, Nikolai.
   
2. Vanessa von Bismarck Cofounder of BPCM, a public relations firm that specialized in fashion, beauty, and wine & spirits. Great-great-granddaughter of Otto von Bismarck.
   
3. Furstenberg, Heinrich & Milana Heinrich is a prince and the Head of the House of Furstenberg as of 2011. He married Milana (Maximiliane of Windlisch-Gaetz), his second cousin, in 1976. He owns and manages the family’s landholdings and beer brewing businesses. His wife (and second cousin) also belongs to a family of high nobility.
   
4. Furstenberg, Alex, Alexandra V.: Alexander is an American businessman and the son of the famous fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg. He remains a partner in his mother’s company. Alexandra is a furniture designer and Alex’s ex-wife. They divorced in 2002 but have 2 children together.
   

Italian Royalty/Nobility
​

1. Peretti Brachetti: Ferdinando Brachetti Peretti. Nobility. Son of Count Aldo Maria Brachetti-Peretti. Co-owner of Italian oil company, API.
   
2. Hugo Brachetti: Also co-owner of Italian oil company, API. Ferdinando’s brother.
   
3. Tiberto Brandolini d'Adda Mr. Brandolini d’Adda currently serves as an independent member of the Board of Directors of YAFA S.p.A. In addition, from 2015 to December 2019, he has been an independent Boardmember of LumX Asset Management (Suisse) S.A. (formerly Gottex Fund Management Holdings Limited).
   
4. Muriel Brandolini is a famous interior designer who has worked with Matt Lauer, the Crown Prince and Princess of Greece, and others. Nuno is a banker and (shockingly) comes from money and nobility
   
5. Gianluca Cicogna: CEO, CFO, and President of Beauty Brands Inc. Brother of Gianfranco Cicogna.
   
6. Gioconda Cicogna: Mother of Gianluca and Gianfranco. Interior designer.
   
7. Gianfranco Cicogna: Gianfranco Cicogna Mozzoni was a business leader, a Count by birth, the Ambassador for the Order of Malta at its embassy in Kenya. His grandfather, Giuseppe Volpi, was known as “Italy’s Rockefeller.” Gianfranco died flying a plane at an air show in 2012.
   
8. Marina Cicogna: Countess. Granddaughter of Kingdom of Italy Finance Minister Giuseppe Volpi, one of the richest and most influential men in Italy in the early 1900s.
   
9. Durso Luigi: Luigi d’Urso was a noble and Italian railroad executive who died in 2006. His grandfather was the 9th Duke di Cassano. His mother was the great-granddaughter of George Clymer, one of the founding fathers of the U.S. and signee of both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. d’Urso was also married to French designer and model Ines de la Fressange.
   
10. Gaetani, Gelasio: Count Gelasio Gaetani comes from one of the oldest families in Rome. The Gaetani (also known as Caetani) family has produced 3 popes, including Pope Boniface VIII. Gelasio is a wine specialist and vineyard owner who helps celebrities buy the most unique bottles of wine throughout the world.
    
11. Gaetani, Rufreido: Roffredo Gaetani was an Italian count, prince, and duke who died in a car crash in 2005. Roffredo came to the public’s attention when he dated Ivana Trump in the 1990s. Brother of Gelasio.
    
12. Pignatelli, Frederico: An Italian prince whose family has “aristocratic ties to Pope Innocenzo XII” (https://federicopignatelli.com/). President, owner, and founder of Pier 59 Studios, the world’s largest photo studio complex. Federico was once accused of sexual harassment by his former assistant, but he was acquitted (https://nymag.com/intelligence2010/08/photography_studio_head_federi.html). Pignatelli also has his own modeling agency which is headed by Brunella Casella, the woman responsible for launching the career of scumbag Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, and others (https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/industry-model-management-new-york-office-10505934/
    

IRELAND
​

1. Gillford, Lord & Lady: Lord Gillford is Patrick Meade, the 8th Earl of Clanwilliam. He is a businessman who is on the board of Soma Oil & Gas Holdings and Eurasia Drilling Company, where he served as Chairman. Eurasia Drilling Company is owned by Russian billionaire oligarch, Alexander Dzhaparidze and billionaire Alexander Putilov.

Greece
​

1. Greece Princess Olga: Princess Olga, Duchess of Apulia (nee Princess Olga Isabelle of Greece) married her second cousin, Prince Aimone of Savoy, Duke of Apulia, in 2008. Olga’s father is first cousins with Prince Phillip (Queen Elizabeth’s wife).
   
2. Greece, MC & Pavlos: Pavlos is the eldest son of Constantine II, the last King of Greece, before the monarchy was abolished in 1973. Worked in New York as an investment portfolio manager. MC is his wife, Marie-Chantal, Crown Princess of Greece. Her father is the billionaire founder of Duty Free Shops. Her sisters, Alexandra and Pia, married into the von Furstenberg and Getty families, respectively. A dinner party was thrown for them at the Standard Hotel in 2009. There were about 12 guests there. One of those exclusive guests was Ghislaine Maxwell (source: https://wwd.com/eye/people/royal-standard-a-fete-for-princess-marie-chantal-and-prince-pavlos-2399957/
   

Russian
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1. Guedroltz, Solina & Nicolas: Solina is a photographer. Her father is a viscount. Nicolas is an antique Russian furniture dealer. He is a Russian prince and is of Belgian nobility through his mother’s side.

Austria
​

1. Hapsburg, Marie: Royalty. Her father was Archduke Joseph Arpad of Austria and her mother, Archduchess Maria of Austria, was a Princess of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg and a member of the House of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg by birth. The Hapsburg (also called Habsburg) family is one of the most powerful and wealthiest families in Europe. The Hapsburgs are another Black Nobility family of very high prestige. I couldn’t find anything out about her husband, Raymond van der Meide. They have 7 children together.

I filed a small claim against someone and they are not able to find him to serve him, because he moved and sold his previous residence and shop. I tried to locate him, getting creative with sites like Spokeo, but they don't have an update. I had a court date scheduled for April 11th. I don't mind waiting forever, taking into consideration that I may never get paid, but I want to make sure the claim does not get dropped. When speaking to someone from the county sheriff's department (that's the number they left for non-service) to ask "now what" an employee told me to still go to court, but I sensed he wasn't sure what he was talking about because it wasn't his first suggestion. I still plan on going there on Monday to make sure that they shouldn't just set another date for court to make more time. It just seems odd and counterproductive that I would appear by myself, show my proof to the judge with no defendant to concur or counter. Is this routine or did I get it wrong?
I have more questions in regards to how to present text evidence, but first this. Thank you.

Just passed the polygraph for a local Sheriff’s Department. Fully disclosed and sent pictures of the hand tattoos, they just need to be covered while at the academy and in uniform.
Looking for recommendations to cover two small hand tattoos (one on index finger, one between index finder and thumb.) The options I found haven’t seemed stellar for the academy. I used an adhesive bandage throughout the hiring process and it’s peeling off by end of day. Just looking to see what anyone else has used either through their academy or daily duty.