Life on the River Styx

1989-1995

It started when an abused housewife tried to escape an abuser. This husband stalked and assaulted her at work, threatened a woman and their family that had provided sanctuary for this mother and ex-housewife as she waited with her child for housing. The entertainment of this household was to listen to this man's threats over the phone. They were so afraid that they had purchase a gun. The first time I saw this man he was throwing his child at the woman that was providing sanctuary knocking her down.

I talked to social service counselors that the housewife had been seeing, they relayed years of abuse and a concern for my girlfriends life. They had also aided with the separation. One would have expected that "law enforcement" would address the assaults, from our experiences they thought that domestic violence was funny. At that time I had not realized that police officer have a proclivity towards domestic violence.

Neither had I expected that all a man has to do is go to the "Church of God" and become a "Born again Christian", having done this he was eligible for the support of the "Christianbrotherhood" at least that was on his attorneys letterhead. We had stalking at night, assaults at my girlfriends employment and Church members showing up during the day. From the husbands Christian attorney came statements of destroying us, working without pay and lies.

It can be accepted that maybe the husband had a zealous attorney and we could not afford to compete. What was not expected was that the courts would dismiss years of state sponsored counseling in favor of a biased church sponsored counselor.

Then there was information provided by a realestate agent stating that my girlfriends attorney girlfriends attorney was running for political office. Did this explain the reason that the attorney was disengaged dropping the ball on things like dates, documents and talking to the social services counselors to determine their merit.

What this first situation identified was the level of infection in the Virginia Judicial System by "Conservative Christian zealots" who would do anything to protect their interests - which in this case was an abusive "Born Again" crossdresser.

1995-2000

Having turvived the abuser, Conservative Christian Zealots and a corrupt court system we were looking at an "abuse of process" action and had filed bankruptcy. My girlfriend had lost all the settlement, her children and the clothes that her husband had made unusable by wearing them - she was bankrupt and her only mode of transportation was walking.

One day she was walking when she was bitten by a neighbors dog. She was able to get medical assistance and given severity of the injury she had need of an attorney. Talking to medical professionals, calling the Prince William County Bar and other attorneys they all recomended Mr. Thomas E. Burks . We had meetings with State Farm Insurance company and the representative admitted we had a case. Five years pass and our psychiatrist called us up telling us to read the June 1, 2000 Washington Post - apparently our attorney had been stealing settlements identifying cases that started two years after my girlfriends case.

I expected that the Virginia State Bar would be diligent in ensureing the "integrity of the profession" would provide counsel for probono clients and bill the offending member. The Bar did not do this, the Bar sent her files claimed the case was still active and discarded her. It was at this time that I observed that the Virginia State Bar had gone from addressing "strategy" with Code of Professional Responsibility to avoiding "strategy" with Professional Guidelines and Rules of Professional Conduct . The former had words like "maintaining the integrity and competence of the legal profession", sending files to a client of a deserting attorney does not maintain any integrity. This leaves us questioning whether the Virginia State Bar used my girlfriends settlement to pay off "real clients". It was also interesting how other attorneys avoided the case like the plague.

2005 - Manassas Police Assault

My girlfriend had a breakdown, Community Services Board (CSB) gave her two months of medication during a period when her counselor had quit for a better job. This resulted in my girlfriend dealing with a new medication and without an advocate, she had a severe reaction to the medication. What followed was a cycle of reaction, being told to go to ER if it got too bad, medication provided by ER to help with the reaction for only a week, the ER drugs ran out and the reaction returned. On a second or third cycle the CVS pharmacist called the police on us and culminated with my being assaulted by the police and our being run to booking.

Now this event occurred in a CVS store with cameras through out. I was approached by the DVD's near a camera. I was not disrespectful but was unaware of any issues requiring the police and asked why the officer wanted my id. The officer then lied to me stating that he would tell me if I gave him my id, I did so and he walked off with it. In his report he stated that I had not provided the id. As the event proceeded I was told that we were under arrest, I submitted for cuffing, turning around and clasping my hands to keep them together. I was told to unclasp them, when I did so I felt the cop jump back and yell "he is resisting arrest". I was tasered three times, body slammed, choked and maced. My girlfriend was nearly comatose. The police let my girlfriend hitchhike ten miles home in a medically impaired state a good samaritan gave her a lift.

The police report stated that I resisted arrest, the store video was ignored by our attorneys even after my explicit instructions to review the video, the doctors were never contacted and witnesses had not been documented. The attorneys strategy was for us to plead guilty.

After the attorneys failed to represent us I wrote to the Manassas City Mayor, Police Chief, the Potomac News which had published our names and addresses and the CVS pharmacy for the video with the intent of using it to enlist the aid of another attorney. CVS was the only one to respond, they stated that they were not liable in the first letter, it took another letter and calls for them to identify that they would not provide the video.

After all this letter writing I wrote the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, his office informed me that ours was a "local matter".

From this experience I know that I can be shopping in a store, assaulted by police with impunity. The evidence and witnesses will be lost, discarded and ignored. This means that "innocent till proven guilty" is a lie along with "rule of law".

I tried a few experiments:

• What happens when one attempts to write a negative review of an attorney?
• What happens when one reports police abuse in the City of Manassas?
• The American Coward
• The Experience Short List of Attorney and Virginia State Bar indiscretions

In 2000 my girlfriends attorney deserted, her case had lasted for five years. The last real knowledge of an active case was when we went to a meeting between the attorney, the insurance representative and ourselves. The attorney had a tape where the insurance agent stated that we had a case, four to five years follow, along with excuses. On June 1, 2000 we get a phone call from our psychiatrist who told us to read the Washington Post, we opened it up and discovered that our attorney had deserted. I laughingly told my girlfriend that this time the Virginia State Bar would support her, that it is their responsibility to the courts and society to ensure that people are represented competently. I found the 2000 change of policy and stated that this was desertion, that at the foundation the Virginia State Bar had core values. I was wrong....

The Bar sent us the attorney's files, stated that the case was still active and dismissed my girlfriend, a pro-bono client. With this dismissal not only did my girlfriend lose her injury case but issues with a legacy, divorce case that were outstanding, on hold till after the injury was resolved - on advice of counsel. We talked to an attorney to represent our interests, to identify whether the case was really still active as the Bar claimed or not. This attorney stated that it was too late for the original case after we informed him of the period involved, asked about the deserter he stated that the Bar will probably take everything, that it would not be worth the fight. Nearly giving up we went to a hearing, the deserter was not there but about five Bar members were there. My girlfriend asked about her case, they laughed at her, apparently because she was a pro-bono client they were going to get paying clients money for them, they were giddy about the prospect of "getting" this attorney. In that moment five years of injury, nerve damage, hospital visits and specialists were shot down. We did not see any document stating that the insurance company even knew about the case, as individuals we could not obtain information on this issue. This left us with questions:

• Did the Bar tell us the truth or did they use my girlfriends settlement to pay off "real clients" and what does that say about "pro-bono" clients ?
• What does this say about the integrity of the profession ?

Time passes and my girlfriend has a mental breakdown, when attempting to obtain prescribed medication at a CVS pharmacy we are assaulted by the police in a CVS store. This incident required that I retain two attorneys. We looked them up on the Internet and found that they were of good standing, so I made a CD where I detailed the CVS store cameras, the prescribing ER doctor, the institution that had messed up the medication and documents that we had scanned. Before I paid the money they were talking about rights and law, that they would double team our cases. I paid them believing that they would research the information and then build a strategy to represent their clients, us. We showed up in court, these two [1, 2] were unprepared. Apparently the charges had been separated, lies told on the police report, witnesses missing and as a result no one court would hear the whole incident. When I pointed out these items to the attorneys they expressed confusion at the separation, dismissed the video and had not contacted either the ER doctor or the doctor that had made the mistake with the medication that resulted in that bad morning in the CVS store. What followed was a year of trying to obtain the CVS store video to validate my story and recover our losses, after processing me my attorney would not respond to letters or phone calls, neither would my girlfriends. I wrote to the Mayor and Police Chief, CVS did respond by avoiding the video issue and responsibility for causing my girlfriend greater trauma and Governor Tim Kaine responded that ours was a local issue.

Again we communicated with the Virginia State Bar about their members and this is the response that we obtained, The VSB does not investigate or discipline a lawyer solely on the quality of the lawyer's advice or strategy. Apparently we can take this to court, but when we attempt to obtain counsel we meet resistance, avoidance by these members to engage in a case against another buddy - so much for professional integrity, guess that was thrown out with Code of Professional Responsibility in 2000.

I then asked, How can I be sure of the integrity of the next attorney I hire to defend our positions ? to which I get a blanket response claiming that "our member are diligent" to which I ask How do I know ? the credibility of the institution is in question here, How can you as a regulatory institution make such a claim ? you do not collect complaints such as ours ? the institutions claim of a diligent membership is without foundation.. When one hires an attorney they take a roll of the dice, will this individual represent you or will they choose to have a "bad hair day" and not. The client has no leverage....

So what does the Virginia State Bar as a regulatory agency do to ensure the integrity of the profession ? :

• Avoidance - changing the policy from one of integrity to mush.
• Feed the damaged client back into the court system
• Cronyism
• Dismissal
• Disregard of probono clients
• I have been told that "word of mouth" / "embarrassment" by taking one to court performs a regulatory function ?
  • Can one expect a "fair" hearing ?
  • We do not trust the integrity of the Virginia Courts to make a fair ruling. [1, 2, 3]
  • There is a reluctance by the professional population to represent clients damaged by their buddies/
• Of course it could be our history, we are on some list and automatically presumed guilty.
• It could be an implementation that funnels or harvests people into a system that profits certain populations - a question of power.

Without leverage a client cannot get their hired "professional" to competently represent them, everything is considered "strategy" and therefore is dismissed by the regulatory agency. It does not know what its members are doing or it does and is irresponsible in ensuring the integrity of the profession.

From our experiences I can state that in our cases that those members of the Virginia State Bar that we retained to represent us did not do so competently, they disgregarded our explicit instructions and wishes.  The Virginia State Bar hid behind a new policy and is negligent in ensureing that its members are representing the citizens. at least two citizens of Virginia in a competent and diligent manner.  The Bar is negligent in its duties to society, it is a fraud....

Virginia a State of Corruption
Blog Collection
The 2000 change of policy
Code of Professional Responsibility Professional Guidelines and Rules of Professional Conduct
1989-1995 Legacy