Cole-Hand Loop

[XLFD]

Absent any oversight, you can expect a corrupted system to promote its own interests rather than do what's right.  That was made clear when I recently asked the county to look into very credible charges of two officers of the City of Ludington committing a misdemeanor in order to shield damning body cam evidence of their police officers not following detainment and arrest protocols.

Effectively this is a follow-up of the Valentine's Day complaint I filed with the Mason County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) involving the use of an illegally-crafted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) policy which made any body cam footage of the LPD cost hundreds of dollars, rather than free, which standing policy and years-long practices indicated it should be (details here).  They would repeat this twice more, and this would lead to the submission of a FOIA fee lawsuit, filed by this reporter, claiming among other things that for the city officials to charge for anything more than actual costs was unlawful and abhorrent to tenets of the FOIA. 

The City of Ludington (COL) was so afraid that these charges would stick that they convinced the wife of one of their DPW officers (Tom Sniegowski) to not recuse herself as judge for the case, even when she had previously disqualified herself from such cases against the COL seven times since 2015 with this same defendant.  But let's overlook that underlying aspect of the inbred corruption between city and county departments to look at another involving the County Sheriff Kim Cole and County Prosecutor Beth Hand in what we call the "Cole-Hand Loop", a derivation of the iconic Paul Newman classic movie "Cool Hand Luke", which is highly applicable since the two officials will be working together to throw our fellow citizens into the 'box' that the sheriff has control over.

Please suspend your biases, for or against, either Ms. Hand or Mr. Cole (pictured above) and their respective offices and hear the tale of what happened since I filed my complaint.  That day I was told by experienced Deputy Warmuskerken that because there existed a lot of conflicts of interests between the MCSO and LPD, the case would be investigated by that agency (this would be found in his report too). 

Later in February, I would inquire in person on the status of the investigation at the sheriff's office and was told by Oscar Davila that it was being looked at by the MSP.  Before the first March meeting at of the township board of PM Township, Sheriff Cole arranged for me to visit his office that Thursday so that he could further discuss the disposition of the case.  He assured me that the state police would conduct a full investigation and bring what they find before the prosecutor. 

When I mentioned that the prosecutor had even bigger conflicts with the COL, as they contract for about $15,000 per year with the COL directly for prosecuting criminal violations of the city code (the same duties that they had first received from Susan Sniegowski back in 2009).  He indicated that was a good concern, but that the answer to my question would be in the hands of the MSP.  

I heard nothing more about it until I ran into Sheriff Cole again at the PM Board meeting in early May.  When I inquired about the case's status, he indicated that he wanted to meet with me again at his office later in the week, he had some time before Gary Castonia's funeral.  I would receive the following at that meeting:

I had already seen enough non-verbal clues at that point so as to figure there would be no warrant issued, but I reserved my feelings of disappointment for later, choosing to discuss other things with the sheriff in regard to the city instead.  The problems seen in this warrant were many and included:

 1.  The use of the county prosecutor's office, a contracted client of the COL, to decide a warrant action against the COL had an inherent conflict of interest involved.

 2.  The information used to come to a warrant action did not mention any kind of investigation, rather a report (by the MCSO as noted by its report number) and a video.  

 3.  The prosecutor's obvious error in confusing the elements of extortion with the elements of 'public extortion' which is a wholly different crime, where all elements were present and discoverable under even a cursory investigation.

 4.  There was no indication that any MSP investigation had ever taken place, as no MSP report was referred to.

There was plenty of turmoil in the prosecutor's office in this period of time, with the elected prosecutor (Lauren Kreinbrink) spending a lot of time on questionable cases like Lance Eichler's, before indicating that she would leave for private practice.  Beth Hand was fully in campaign mode for the open spot and the only assistant PA around to cover for the office.  This, however, was not an excuse for their office not abiding by the FOIA.

For on June 13, I sent a FOIA request by email after failure to receive a response as to my questions regarding the warrant action sent in May.  My prior ignored inquiries did not require responses, but FOIA requests do, and within five business days of reception.  I asked with specificity for all of the records that led to her decision to not seek out a warrant for 'public extortion'.  I waited five business days and more.   On June 25th, I sent her a reminder that her office was violating the FOIA by not responding, and I even hand delivered it to her office.   

When I finally received the FOIA response over a week late, it was clear that the county sheriff and prosecting departments had failed me greatly.  This response included my request followed by warmuskerken's incident report along with the documents supporting my claim given to him on Valentine's Day, the latter three pages given to Sheriff Cole at our March meeting.  There was zero investigations made either by the MCSO or the MSP, in fact there was no indication that the MSP ever saw this, contrary to what I was told by two deputies (one who said on his report that it was immediately given to the Hart Post of the MSP) and Sheriff Cole, who lied to me twice about having my complaint investigated by the state.  

Contrary to the City of Ludington's lawyer, Beth Hand, who doubles as the county prosecutor, the elements of public extortion should be easily proven by the facts in the case in that the COL attorney and police chief willfully created their own FOIA policy without it being approved by the city council, in order to make what were free videos in the past $25 each, even if they were 34 second phone calls.  It flies totally in the face of what's allowed by statute and they received my deposit on that Valentine's Day and still haven't returned the sizable chunk of money they demanded for its disclosure.  City Attorney Ross Hammersley once alerted to my filing a claim against him, had the gall to double the amount and establish an even more illegal policy to block the release of these video due to ridiculous and unlawful charges.

Prosecutor Beth Hand failed to recuse herself from deciding a warrant action against her client (the COL) who pays her well each year.  She showed herself as being very loyal to her client, 'accidently' mistaking the felony of regular extortion for the misdemeanor of public extortion so that neither police chief or attorney would be charged for their crime.  

But most infamously, Sheriff Kim Cole, along with two of his subordinates, failed to have the state police investigate my complaint like all three said was happening.  Each of them lied to me that it was happening, Warmuskerken wrote it on the report, Cole told me twice in his office that it was in their hands and being investigated, and indicated any warrant action would also be decided from a neutral prosecutor looking at the MSP investigation.  That too was a lie, so how can I or anyone else ever trust this man who sat on my claim, had no investigation happen, and allows the public extortion to continue unchecked and ongoing?

Nobody should respect the justice system in Mason County, because they are made up of extortionists, corrupted prosecutors, and lying police officers, elected Sheriff Cole leading the latter into universal disrespect by those people who yearn for an impartial and fair justice system in Mason County for once.  As for now, we have to get rid of the toxic Cole-Hand Loop which rewards corruption and lives on lies.

[Freedom Seeker]

Is there any connection to Hand from.Pontiac and Barnett? How did Hand get to Ludington? Has this been a team for years past?

[XLFD]

I overlooked that connection, they would be contemporary officials in that area for what would seem to be about seven years or so (1995-2001).  We are doing some research on a story involving Hand and former Circuit Court Judge Meyer Warshawsky and finding some interesting stuff, but as Barnett was a mid-level member of the PPD at the time, maybe Barnett played a part in some questionable drug convictions that happened.

Consider that a teaser.

[Willy]

Love the title of this topic. Very creative. It's to bad it actually describes what is taking place in the dark corners of local police and politicians secret squirrel society. Hard to believe that these community leaders are acting in such a corrupt way. And if it were not for your top notch investigating and reporting the public would never know what is really going on. Being an effective jurist  is another talent you have used to expose these squirrels.