Friday, September 16, 2016

Letter to Deputy Attorney General Joshua Lowry

The following is a letter I sent to Deputy Attorney General Joshua Lowry. I wanted to make him aware of a few matters regarding the County Clerk's problems in appointing a Special Judge for my lawsuit seeking public records. One of the matters include Ripley Superior Court Judge and Dearborn County Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard agreeing to a time served plea deal to a man who would "steal young girl's underwear and women's lingerie” and “would take pictures of feminine clothing and write fantasies and nickname the women whom he had visited." This was my former cell mate at the Dearborn County Law Enforcement Center. Negangard struck a deal with Joseph McCaleb because he agreed to try to bait me into saying something incriminating while wearing a wire in the jail. To say the least they got nothing on me but they released a sexual predator on the streets. More information below.

September 16, 2016
Deputy Attorney General Joshua Lowry
Office of Attorney General
Indiana Government Center South, 5th Floor
302 West Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204-2770
Telephone: (317) 233-6215
Facsimile: (317) 232-7979

Re: Special Judge Appointment in Cause No. 15D01-1607-PL-000050

Mr. Lowry,

This correspondence is to help provide some insight and/or transparency regarding the appointment process of a special judge in the above cause. On September 14, 2016, the Dearborn County Clerk of Courts, Rick Probst, left me the following voice mail:

“Mr. Brewington this is Rick Probst, Clerk of Courts in Dearborn County. I had a message to give you a call from yesterday. Um, you want to know what’s going on with the judge appointments, um, and basically it appears that, uh, the judge in Ripley county has recused himself. Uh, you have the opportunity with the other attorney to agree on a judge. I’m waiting for the seven days to pass. That will be tomorrow. Um, and I expect to appoint a replacement judge failing your agreement with the other attorney. Uh, I expect to appoint a replacement judge on the 19th. Uh, it’s delayed, uh, because I am unable to contact the Supreme Court representative. I want to talk to him, uh, about the previous referral to the Supreme Court. It appears that this action will be in rotation judges, uh, in our district, uh, but I don’t expect anything to occur or an order to be cut until the 19th. Um, okay, uh, if you have any questions you can give me a call 812-537-8867. Thank you”

Other than the Court’s Order Appointing a Special Judge filed July 19, 2016, I am unaware of any other order in this case pertaining to the appointment of a special judge. Probst’s actions following the July 19 order raise many questions, the first of which is by whose authority did Probst depart from the appointment procedure described in the Order Appointing a Special Judge. Judge Cleary’s order stated:

“If the parties are unable to agree upon a Special Judge, the Special Judge will be selected by the Clerk pursuant to Indiana Trial Rule 79 (H) and Dearborn County Local Rule AR-8.”
I am somewhat at a disadvantage because the court and/or clerks have failed to provide me with copies of all orders and correspondence in this matter. I did not receive a copy of Ripley Circuit Judge Ryan King’s Order Declining Appointment as Special Judge, filed August 15, 2016. My only knowledge of such order came from Probst’s Request for Appointment of Special Judge by the Indiana Supreme Court, dated August 19, 2016. Probst cited Indiana Trial Rule 79(H)(3) in requesting an appointment from the Indiana Supreme Court. T.R. 79(H)(3) which states: 

(3) [C]ertification to the Supreme Court of Indiana of cases in which no judge is eligible to serve as special judge or the particular circumstance of a case warrants selection of a special judge by the Indiana Supreme Court.
I have not received copies of any orders of recusal from any of the other eligible judges listed under AR-8. It would appear obvious that a couple of the listed judges would be ineligible due to their prior involvement with State of Indiana v. Brewington, Case No. 15D02-1103-FD-84, but I assume that would explain the necessity of having eight eligible judges for appointment of special judge. I have not received copies of any correspondence between Probst and the unnamed male representative from the Indiana Supreme Court referred to in Probst’s voice mail. I also did not receive a copy of the Order from Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush, filed September 2, 2016. Now I have a September 14, 2014 voice mail from the Dearborn County Clerk of Courts informing me that the deadline for the parties to agree on a judge is September 15, 2016, when the Clerk failed to provide the parties with any notice that the Clerk reverted to the local rules of court to appoint a special judge. The unknown variable in the equation is the unidentified male representative of the Indiana Supreme Court mentioned in Probst’s voice mail that appears to have some impact in whether Probst decides to follow the July 19, 2016 order to appoint a special judge per Indiana Trial Rule 79 (H) and Dearborn County Local Rule AR-8.   

The Motion for Summary Judgment filed August 31, 2016, demonstrates how the transcripts do not match the audio from the grand jury proceeding in question. There is also no question that the Dearborn Superior Court II prepared an abridged version of the grand jury record while representing the transcripts to be complete. The transcripts and audio are not only void of any record of the proceedings prior to witness testimony, the audio and transcripts do not match in several places. Your clients will have to argue the Court abandoned the normal court recording process that automatically stores and names court audio in five-minute files, which in itself is a violation of Indiana Code § 35-34-2-3(d). In the alternative they will have to argue why it is acceptable to charge the public $300.00 for a “re-creation” of an official record that does not contain information included in the transcription of the official record. In serving as counsel for the Dearborn Superior Court II and Judge Brian Hill, the Office of the Indiana Attorney General finds itself in a position to argue why the public should not have the ability to see to what extent the Dearborn Superior Court II and Dearborn County Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard abused the grand jury process.

Your clients’ opposition to transparency and the truth necessitated this action. The Indiana Public Access Counselor opined that Judge Brian Hill’s many excuses why not to release the grand jury audio were invalid. The Defendants’ newest claim that the grand jury audio from the investigation of Brewington intertwined with the investigations of “four to five” other grand jury proceedings is simply rebuked by the lack of notice in the record that the focus of the grand jury investigation switched away or back to Brewington’s case. In the wake of the Dearborn County Superior Court II altering grand jury records, which assisted Prosecutor Negangard by depriving a criminal defendant of charging information before trial, Dearborn County Clerk of Courts Rick Probst disregarded the order to follow the local rules of court and filed a request for appointment to the Supreme Court. Despite not being a party to the action, Probst copied Prosecutor Negangard to the filing, suggesting Negangard had an interest in this case. Adding suspicion to the Clerk’s actions is the order of the listing of eligible judges as seen below:

1.            Judge of the Jefferson Circuit Court
2.            Judge of the Jefferson Superior Court
3.            Judge of Switzerland Circuit Court
4.            Judge of the Ripley Circuit Court
5.            Judge of the Ripley Superior Court
6.            Judge of the Dearborn-Ohio Circuit Court
7.            Judge of Dearborn Superior Court II
8.            Judge of Dearborn Superior Court I

Following Ripley Circuit Judge Ryan King’s order declining appointment, Probst defied Trial Rule 79 and arbitrarily sought an appointment from the Indiana Supreme Court. Local rules instruct the Clerk of Courts to appoint the next judge in line when selecting a new special judge. According to the local rules of the Dearborn County Courts, the next appointment should have been Ripley Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Sharp. This might present a conflict, as Jeff Sharp was a Dearborn County Deputy Prosecutor prior to being elected Superior Court Judge. Prior to serving as a deputy prosecutor, Sharp was the public defender for Joseph McCaleb who, as a DirecTV installation technician, would “enter the homes of DirecTV subscribers and steal young girl's underwear and women's lingerie.” McCaleb “would take pictures of feminine clothing and write fantasies and nickname the women whom he had visited. He also would attempt to contact the subscribers via the Internet using Facebook or text message them.”[1] Sharp negotiated a deal with Negangard to secure a “time served” plea bargain for McCaleb in exchange for what turned out to be unsuccessful attempts by McCaleb to bait his cellmate, Dan Brewington, into making threatening statements while recording the conversation through a hidden device. No illegal conduct was recorded and, in a county whose stratospheric incarceration rate made it the subject of a recent New York Times article, the deviant pervert was allowed to go free.

Following Sharp on the list of eligible judges are the three judges of Dearborn County. Dearborn Circuit Judge James D. Humphrey was one of the alleged victims in Negangard’s criminal defamation case against Brewington. Dearborn Superior Court II Judge Sally McLaughlin, formerly Blankenship, was the original judge in Brewington’s criminal trial. McLaughlin set Brewington’s bond at $500,000 surety and $100,000 cash in the absence of any evidence that a crime had been committed. It was on McLaughlin’s watch that Chief Court Reporter Barbara Ruwe altered the grand jury transcripts and represented the transcript to be complete and then oversaw the modification of the grand jury audio in an apparent attempt to match the altered transcripts. At position number eight is Judge Cleary, the original judge in this lawsuit seeking public records, which leads us back to one through three; the only three Democrat judges on the list and the only judges to have decades of experience in private practice rather than rising to the judicial position through the ranks of  the county prosecutor’s office. Probst abandoned the local trial rules following Judge King’s admission that he was a fraternity brother and close friend of defendant Hill, rather than pass the case to judges of the opposite political party with careers not molded by the county prosecutor’s office.

Regardless of whether the actions of the Dearborn Clerk of Courts are malicious or due to incompetence, it falls in line with your clients’ actions in obstructing the release of tampered grand jury records that played a role in an unconstitutional criminal defamation trial. As such, I will be contacting the Clerk of the Indiana Supreme Court and Counsel for the Indiana Supreme Court in the hopes of determining who is responsible for secretly advising Probst throughout this current debacle of finding a judge to hear this case. I intend to contact the FBI about these matters as well.

Thank you for your time and feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. A copy of this letter can be found on www.danbrewington.blogspot.com for your convenience.
   

Sincerely,


Daniel P. Brewington
3 W Central Avenue
Delaware, Ohio 43015
513.383.3136


Cc:      Prosecutor F. Aaron Negangard
Dearborn County Prosecutor Office
215 W High St
Lawrenceburg, IN 47025





[1] http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/12/09/42099.htm

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