Who Were The True Conspirators?

I have to do another post on Mary Surratt to share with you what I have found, so we have a Part III to Mary Surratt.  This information is fascinating to me.  I have never been interested in history, even the thought of it bores me.  Give me a math problem any 'ole day.  But this Mary Surratt case and the bigger picture is an enormous frame up and cover up.  I did not get the significance of many things I saw in the movie "The Conspirator", until I came home and read further.

Historians fall on both sides of this debate...."Was Mary Surratt guilty or innocent?"  The historians saying she was guilty generally argue that she had to know, they buy what the government fed them almost 150 years ago, contrary to what has been found since.  One historian even goes so far as to say she must have been guilty because she had such a calm demeanor and was "clever" during her recorded interrogations. I don't know about you but calm is what I do, in fact the worse the circumstances, the calmer I get.  Because fear, insanity, rage all cloud my ability to think and reason.  When under extreme pressure or conflicting situations I get real quiet and listen with all my might so I can take the next best step.  BUT, now can you see where that can get interpreted as "obfuscating, lying, denying and parsing her words"?  That is how some historians have interpreted her demeanor and her claim of innocence. 

YET, during the trial, five priests and several other people testified on her behalf as to her stellar character and religious devotion.  Who knew more about Mary Surratt, these people who spent time with her over the years or the historians who paint her as Booth's co-conspirator?  It seems to me if someone had a shady, questionable character it would have surfaced at some time throughout the years prior to this event.  But you know the saying, people will find (or create) the evidence to fit their beliefs.  Perhaps I am guilty of the same in this instance...let's take a look at what came up after the conspiracy trial of Mary Surratt.

In the comment section of my prior blog I present the theory that there were others, such as Edwin Stanton, Secretary of War, and President Andrew Johnson himself that seemed to go out of their way to see these 8 people convicted and immediately dealt their punishments.  Yet they could have had their own political agendas to rid Lincoln of the Presidency, in fact it would seem they had far more MOTIVE than the characters convicted of conspiracy.  I set out to understand this better by researching John Wilkes Booth's diary, John Surratt Jr.'s trial two years later in a civilian court and anything I could find out about Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial.  I must make a correction here...in a previous comment (last blog - comment section) I said that Andrew Johnson was impeached, but that is an error.  He missed being impeached by one vote, he did finish out his term, but was a very unpopular President. 

I learned several things that I want to share with you, this will give you more insight into how (at a grand level) innocent people can come to be falsely accused and wrongly convicted.  It gives you a better understanding of the deception that is possible when perpetrating fraud on the courts.  Because, rarely, if ever, is a wrongful conviction a result of error, it is much more the result of a deliberate withholding and/or altering/creating evidence, false (coerced) testimonies by state witnesses....and a prosecutor who is hell-bent on winning at any cost while exercising their persuasive powers over the jury.

In the movie, "The Conspirator" the alledged conspirators, while imprisoned awaiting their trials and after had hoods over their heads.  The hoods were lined with one inch of cotton and there was only one small hole at the mouth for them to eat their food.  Therefore, they could not be heard.  In addition, they were shackled making writing impossible and were not allowed any discussions or visits from the outside world (with one exception, at the end of the trial Mary was allowed a brief visit from her daughter).  They had been silenced, were tried quickly and punishment was dealt immediately.  Even back then, this treatment was unheard of.  Mary Surratt pleaded that she be allowed to make a last statement but was denied.  What was the government covering up, what were they so afraid she would say?

Mary Surratt was convicted on the false testimony of two men.  There was no exculpatory evidence, only circumstantial.  Both men later, changed their stories.  John Lloyd, testified in John Surratt Jr.'s trial two years later.  "Lloyd not only contradicted some of the statements he had made at the conspiracy trail but admitted that he had been subjected to both promises and threats."  According to John T. Ford (owner of Ford Theater) Lloyd had told him he "was taken to Bryantown and when he refused to say anything against Mrs. Surratt, he was hanged by his thumbs until he could no longer stand the pain.  Only then, to spare himself from further torture, did he agree to give perjured testimony against his landlady."

The other false testimony came from Louis Weichmann who told his friends John Brophy and Louis Carland, following the conspiracy trial that "his conscience was troubling him, that he had lied on the witness stand to save his own life and keep his government position.  He said that his statements had been written out for him and he had to testify based on that."  On the day of Mary's execution John Brophy swore out an affidavit disclosing Weichmann's statements and copied the Washington Constitutional Union, plus took a copy to the White House. Carland later testified in John Surratt Jr.'s trial regarding what Weichmann had told them that day.

The evidence that was introduced in the John Surratt Jr. civilian trial two years later included Booth's diary, the clemency plea for Mary Surratt (coming from the tribunal members who had voted against the death sentence and were coerced by Stanton and Holt to change their vote),  petitions given to Andrew Johnson, prior to the executions, and the statements of Lewis Powell and John T. Ford presenting "evidence of confessed perjuries and witness intimidation by the government."  "The civil trial of John Surratt Jr. exposed many injustices that a free people must never again tolerate."

John Wilkes Booth's diary indicated there were many over him in this plot, he did not act alone.  It coincided with General Baker's diary, his accounts of the Lincoln assassination.  "Both implicated, even boasted  of a secret government council which had bound the country over a century.  It revealed that the true killers were led by Lincoln's most trusted military advisor in the Civil War, Edwin M. Stanton, the Secretary of War."  General Lafayette Baker, chief of the National Detective Police Force and fellow conspirator (conspirator with Stanton), wrote "Stanton's plot was a vast, well financed attempt to seize control of the federal government, signed Lafayette C. Baker."  Numerous attempts were made on Baker's life (to silence him), he died of arsenic poisoning three years following the conspiracy trial.

Seven hours before Lincoln's assassination John Wilkes Booth left a note at Vice President Andrew Johnson's home. It said "Don't wish to disturb you.  Are you at home?  J. Wilkes Booth."   This note, along with Booth's diary were presented at President Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial, in addition to several other items that had surfaced during John Surratt Jr.'s trial.

Over zealous prosecutors, power hungry men (and women), frightened witnesses can create anything.  I have said this before in my blogs related to my own case...there is NO need to make up any lies if a person is truly guilty.  Their guilt will stand on its own.  The fact that there was so much coercion going on is all the evidence I need to know in my heart that Mary Surratt was innocent.  She was a scapegoat and a distraction used to cover the true conspirators.

Mary Surratt was buried at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Washington DC.  There is a bronze plaque by her grave that reads:

"The souls of the just are in the hands of God, and the torment of malice shall not touch them.  In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die, but they are at peace."

If you are interested in reading further or want to follow the quotes above, there are many books and Internet articles on this subject.  I encourage you to take a look and draw your own conclusions.  Injustices in our system didn't end with Mary Surratt, nor are they unique to the military, they continue today in our civilian courts.  Following are a few of the references I used:

http://albensonjr.com/marysurratt1.shtml
http://albensonjr.com/marysurratt2.shtml
http://www.ashevilletribune.com/asheville/heritage/Surratt%203.htm
http://www.ashevilletribune.com/asheville/heritage/Surratt%204.htm
http://rogerjnorton.com/Lincoln26.html
http://itwasjohnson.impiousdigest.com/zero12.htm

ALWAYS....Follow the Money!

By now you are probably asking "What's all this hub-bub about a Separate Property Partition?  Why is it such a hot issue in this case?"  Now listen up you men who are always thinking of ways to protect assets and especially listen up you women who may need to understand this someday or add this protection to your own portfolio.

Many of you know about Separate Property coming into a marriage, and how it can be maintained as separate in a community property state as Texas.  This is about creating Separate Property once you are already married.  In the case I am familiar with it is done frequently with real estate developers where the banks and other lenders are requiring personal guarantees during the construction phase.  By doing a Separate Property Partition it allows the guarantor to carve a piece of community property out and split it with their spouse equally thus creating two equal Separate Properties, one for themselves and one for their spouse.  That way if real estate development deals go belly-up and the guarantee is called by the lender(s), they can take the community property and the separate property of the guarantor but the separate property of the guarantor's spouse is still in tact and can be used to support the family.  Pretty good risk management, you say?  Yes, it is.  There was another purpose though, in the instance in which I am familiar.

The above reason for this partition is the one the spouse hears.  The real reason I saw this instigated was once these partners get wealthy, quite often they go looking for the trophy...thus facilitating a divorce.  Guess what divorces do?  Tie up the partnership when the partner is living in a community property state.  A divorce can prevent a real estate deal from being sold, by tieing it up for years, thus keeping all the partners of a deal from realizing millions in profits.  All it takes is one partner going through a nasty divorce (these divorces literally take years)....and where there is a trophy involved I guarantee you there is some nastiness.  So, to prevent this, once there is a property separation, all new real estate development deals are done in the guarantor's separate property.  Over time the old deals are either sold or go back to lender.  As a consequence, it is usually a surprise when the spouse files for a divorce and finds out most the deals have been in the other's separate property and all along they believed the corpus of their community property was growing by millions from the investment profits in these development deals.  The deals were not happening in community property after all so it happens there is really nothing to get other than their own separate property and perhaps the old homestead.  You see, it seems everything comes down to money, right?  If there are no child custody issues, divorce at this level of wealth is just about money.

That's why it surprises me in the statement to the police, it was said that the false accuser was not watching his accounts as he was "distracted by his divorce".  What was his divorce about, where custody was not an issue, if not about money?  Correct, it was entirely about money so if he was distracted with his divorce, wouldn't he be distracted TOWARD his money?  Of course he was, he was already a micro manager of his money, the divorce process only amplified his focus.

What makes this particular situation even more precarious, you ask?  My client's wife called me in January 2003 (see timeline) to tell me she was going to bust his separate property because in the second partition, which she said she never agreed to, he pulled all real estate investments into his separate property, giving them a nominal value and taking his equal share of cash out of the community property, leaving practically nothing in the community property.  Some of these deals went on to see significant profits very soon after (or before) the transfer....if we only knew the actual date of the agreement.  Yet in her testimony at my trial she agrees we had that conversation and she said those things to me but then five minutes later goes on to say she would sign anything to save her marriage.  Hmmm, well, which is it?  She did not agree to it or she did?  She was not questioned further.  The jury was left to wonder what all that was about since no one explained to them the significance of the 2nd Separate Property Partition and how I was placed smack in the middle of it.

As you may recall in the previous timeline blog I talk about how I was questioned on exposure items to client's divorce during a transition meeting on October 15, 2003.  Now that you understand everything about Separate Property Partitions, in particular the intent behind them, I think you'll agree with my stated concern of these three items:

1. Client's wife had no legal representation in the 2nd property separation and was now questioning all the real estate deals taken out of the community property causing an enormous disparity (years later) in the values of their once equal separate properties.
2. All the partnership and corporate interests were listed as a nominal value on his transfer of these assets to his separate property when in fact there were on-going sales supporting a much greater value.
3. My client's unwillingness to provide me with the executed document so I could complete the schedules required by the divorce attorneys - proper allocation of sale proceeds based on effective date was in question.

To further clarify the issues related to this partition, just a couple weeks before the trial (now 2007) I searched for the document as my understanding is it had to be filed with the county and I figured out my trial attorney was doing no investigative work.  Going through the records in downtown Dallas I found both partitions, the first partition filed in the late 80's and the 2nd partition filed in the late 90's.  When comparing the two I found many differences.  The first partition was prepared by an estate/family attorney.  Whereas the second one had been hacked up, I presume by my client, having his secretary cut, paste and type and I came to wonder if it was even a legal document...because it was reciting family law codes which I doubted were even applicable, given the deletions and additions.  It became clear to me why he would never give me the document to support this 2nd partition.  My attorney touched on the authenticity of her signature and the nominal values but the significance of all this was not driven home to the Jury.  Further, when she volunteered she was paid plenty in the divorce, that was not the issue...the issue was the motive of my client when the divorce started and as it became heated up.

All this leads into the significance of the Motion in Limine filed 10 days before my trial and how it is the prosecution was able to keep motive for the false accusations out of my trial.  Following is that Motion:

This document did not come to my attention until about 2 months ago when a friend of my husband's was researching my case.  He also found that all of the testimony from my trial and pre-trial hearings has been taken out of the public records and is being help in the DA's office so he was unable to review that.  My own trial attorney never told me of this Motion.  So, during my testimony I was constantly interrupted by prosecution and not allowed to tell what happened.  It sure did not lend to my credibility in the eyes of the Jury.

At least all of this is coming to light now....for that I am grateful.  What is interesting is that I, the defendant, wanted everything out in the open, nothing to hide and begged for the involvement of the Feds.  Typically it is the defendant who is trying to get Motions in Limine and it is typically the defendant who is fighting like crazy during the pretrial hearings to keep prior actions out of the trial.  In my case it was the false accusers who were spending large sums of money and energy doing that, as if they were the defendants.  I am told my case has been very atypical....I don't know.  What I do know is there were three of us who knew the details of these transactions...my client, his business partner and me.  And, it took awhile for me to figure it out, I was just trying to correct the allocations, thinking that is what everybody wanted.  Apparently, that is where I made my mistake!

WHAT'S THEIR MOTIVE?

When this happened, the first thing that came to me is WHY?  Why are these men doing this?  There must be a mistake.  I worked years for them, respected confidentiality, worked through nights and weekends if that is what it took to get a project done.  Took phone calls in the middle of the night when they worried about their investments and the financial markets.  I was there when they weren't sure if they could trust the banks and wondered if they should bury their money in the backyard to keep it safe.  These men were so focused on their money and watching every little penny even their ex-wives had to fight for years to get divorce settlements out of them.  These men defined MICRO-management when it came to their money and anything they invested in over the years.  So why were they doing this?  I was in the process of leaving them and placing all my energy on The NOAH Project and its growth...the three of us knew that was coming.  There was an on-going joke over the years...."If you ever decide to leave us, you know so much, we'll have to kill you."  It seemed funny at the time but now it wasn't funny at all....were they serious?  Were they doing this in the form of assassinating my character?

In December 2003 I had several phone conversations with Detective Zuczek (pronounced: Zoo-check) from DPD.  I could tell by his responses to my questions and requests that he didn't know much about white collar business or the other possibility is he had already decided I was guilty so anything I had to say was of no use. Then everything went silent. The next I heard from him was on April 5, 2004 when the Detective called and said there was a warrant out for my arrest, the Grand Jury had indicted me.  Forty eight hours later I was arrested and spent 7 days incarcerated while a bond was put in place.  During those 48 hours I had engaged an attorney to take my case.  As it turned out he also did not know much about white collar issues and had a fraud investigator in all our meetings to translate my business-speak.  A few weeks into this I found out he would have to hire somebody else to conduct the trial as he had failed to mention to me that he was not a trial attorney.  I knew I was not getting proper representation from this man who was negotiating a plea on the side (according to his assistant) even though I told him we had to go to trial, I would never plea to something I did not do.

I visited with a friend and his wife one evening to go over all that had happened.  He was a retired Air Force intelligence officer and had stayed connected to the intelligence community.  He immediately checked into other attorneys and found that one of Dallas's best white collar defense attorneys was Mark Perez. On my friend's recommendation and a meeting with Mr. Perez I moved my case to him.  My friend, on the other hand, started an open Internet chat for me.  He would sometimes ask me specific questions and other times he would tell me to just type in the chat everything that came to my mind that happened over the 20 years I worked for these men.  He said to focus on anything that would give rise to the reasons they would set me up.  In other words, anything I knew that they would not want others to know.  Also, anything that I remembered that was odd, or out of place....anything that just stood out.  He also questioned me extensively on all the details of my case.  I printed out all of these chats and organized them chronologically in notebooks.  The Internet chat dialogues sit about a foot high.  I have always had a photographic memory of events which certainly revealed itself in the dialogues.  I charted things when asked and flow-charted organization structures so the details were clear and easier to understand for all those reviewing this information.  I was under the impression that my friend had included others in the questioning of me and processing the volumes of information I provided.  The chats were done over a period of about a year.

During this time I had to change attorneys once again.  Mr. Perez was asking for an additional $50,000 to go to trial.  My family and I could not come up with that.  In fact, as you saw in a previous blog, for a time I had to move to a homeless (transitional living) shelter because we were all out of money.  The court recognized me as indigent (unable to pay legal fees) and appointed an attorney for me.  From the start Mr. Birdsall did not want to listen to the details of my case, was argumentative and said he did not know how to present my case to a jury.  He tried to withdraw from my case and I asked he be taken off my case but both requests were denied by the court.  Since he repeatedly told me he did not know how to defend me I gave him a copy of all the Internet chats I had accumulated on my case, highlighted with the most pertinent points.  Because he wasn't willing to listen to me I thought he might be willing to read.   He kept it but refused to read it and gave it back to me shortly before the trial.  Within those chats were the detail time lines of all that happened in the events of my case, questionable actions over the years of my clients' (false accusers) and an outline of how to proceed with my defense.  I would tell him this every time he told me he didn't know how to defend me but still he would not read it or give me the time to go over all the details with him.  In fact his argument when he tried to withdraw from the case was that he did not have time for the case and we had a conflict of strategy.  Several times my husband and I asked him what his strategy was but he would not answer. 

I had almost four years of continuances and pre-trial hearings.  During that time all that I needed for my defense was either thrown out as "irrelevant" or "privileged".  The men who falsely accused me were allowed to choose what I could use in my defense which was nothing of any value and they knew it.  Their civil attorneys ran the show in the pre-trial hearings, the prosecutor was just a mouth piece for them.  Further, the man who knew my case inside and out, my friend who conducted the Internet chats, was never even called to testify on my behalf.  When I asked my attorney about him the day before the trial was to start...he just responded, "He doesn't know anything." He never even talked to him, much less subpoenaed him as a witness in my trial, as I had requested.

I will explain more in the next blog about depositions from the civil case that ran parallel to my criminal case.  Also coming...what happened to the computer?!  Until next time....