Kevin,
It occurs to me that a good person to contact is:
*Terrell Warren*
410-878-8186
5800 Wabash Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21215
She is the community liaison for Northern District in the State's
Attorney's office. I have no doubt that she will be very interested in
the efforts to intimidate a potential witness, and she can put you in
touch with the right person in the State's Attorney's office.
Also, I have read or seen on tv that there are cases of people serving
very long sentences in prison who have nothing better to do than to file
lots of groundless lawsuits, e.g. against the jurors who have convicted
them. Such lawsuits are always thrown out, but they nonetheless
constitute a nuisance for the jurors who are forced to respond. Do not
let them intimidate you.
Steve.
Stephen J Gewirtz wrote:
Kevin,
Years ago, I read that someone in NY had been convicted of the common
law crime of barratry (the bringing of 2 or more groundless suits at
common law). I do not know whether barratry is a crime under Maryland
common or statute law, but this state makes a lot more use of common
law than just about any other state. You can easily research online
any Maryland court cases involving the lawyer who has threatened to
sue you as well as the person who poured gasoline, and if you find
something that suggests that either has committed barratry, you may
want to contact the office of the State's Attorney and possibly the
Attorney Grievance Commission.
Here is a link to research Maryland court cases involving both the
lawyer and the person who poured the gasoline:
http://casesearch.courts.state.md.us/inquiry/inquiry-index.jsp
I just looked, and there are 467 cases listed involving the lawyer.
The first page of them contains cases in which he was the attorney,
and that may be true of all of the rest of them. Take a good look at
the cases (and that will take quite a bit of time).
In any case, since what you reported to the police was accurate, and
since it was the police who turned it into an attempted arson charge,
I cannot imaging that a judge would not dismiss any lawsuit against
you. And I would hope that the lawyer and/or the plaintiff in the
lawsuit would be risking a charge of barratry if either has brought
other groundless suits.
Also, I would second the suggestion of calling the Sun and the TV
stations. Some publicity would probably be devastating for those who
are apparently attempting to abuse the law here.
As I think about it, it may be the case that the lawyer sees you as a
likely witness in a criminal case against his client and is hoping to
intimidate you into not testifying, possibly as part of a deal to drop
the lawsuit.
Steve.
regina ARMENTA wrote:
Wow! I can't imagine that this could happen to someone for calling the police. I would suggest contacting the news papers and the CV association.
Regina Armenta
www.yogaonwheels.org
--- On Fri, 6/19/09, Kevin Zeese <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Kevin Zeese <[email protected]>
Subject: [Chat] No good deed goes unpunished
To: "'Charles Village Discussion List'" <[email protected]>, "Charles Village
Chat" <[email protected]>
Date: Friday, June 19, 2009, 3:23 PM
Your
suggestions are welcome on
the situation below.
Last
September we saw someone
walk across the alley behind Calvert to the St. Paul side
and pour gasoline over
the door of a garage. We could smell the gasoline
from our house, about
five doors down, and then a person with us went up to it
and confirmed that it
was in fact gasoline.
We thought this was bizarre and did
not know what to do.
We did not know the
persons intent but were concerned that if there was a fire
it could affect the
whole block of row houses. If a neighbor had seen
someone do this to our
house or the house next door we'd want them to call the
police, so we
did.
The
police sent out the arson
squad. We never accused
anyone of arson but did report the pouring of
gasoline.
Recently we found out that the
individual was arrested and held over in jail for three
days, paying a $1,000
bond to get out. The police wanted to charge him with
attempted arson but
the prosecutors felt they could not prove it. The
police/prosecutor never
called us to discuss whether there was anything more than
gasoline being
poured.
We
received a letter from a
lawyer, Howard Schulman, threatening to sue us for
defamation because we
accused his client of attempted arson. In the letter
the lawyer
acknowledged that his client did indeed pour gasoline in
the alley. He
claimed it was to kill rats. Pouring gasoline and
other chemicals in the
ally is itself illegal.
We
wrote back saying that the
lawyer had the facts wrong and we did not accuse anyone of
attempted arson,
merely that he poured gasoline on a neighbors garage --
something the lawyer
admitted.
The
lawyer wrote back with a
draft complaint continuing his threat to sue and telling us
to have our lawyer
or insurance company call him.
We
contacted our insurance
company which initially said they would cover this, but now
say they do
not. They say they talked to the lawyer and that he
does intend to
sue. He suggests we get a
lawyer.
Of course, getting a lawyer would probably
cost more than
settling the case but we do not want to settle a false
claim or hire a
lawyer.
We see
this as a legal stick-up
-- the type of thing that will discourage others from
calling the police when
they see a crime.
Any
suggestions? Any
lawyers or others with experience with
this?
Thanks.
KZ
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