Little factoid, Lansing is a seat alright. It is the seat of ultimultimate
corruption, waste, fraud and abuse nowadays.
And Mason is a quaint town, but not immune to the politics of the North, in
this case.
I'll have more about my political pre-trial and all of this later or another
day really.
It is incredable, but Judge Collette took the new or proposed prosecuter on
today on my behalf and is upping the ante on these pricks, often of both
parties.
Enough for now. Stay tuned.
----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Wick
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, March 30, 2016 3:09 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: not victim less crime
Little factoid – Lansing is the only state capital in America that is not
also a county seat.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 30, 2016, at 2:58 AM, Charles Krugman (Redacted sender "ckrugman" for
DMARC) <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
yes, that was so thoughtful of them to schedule your trial in Mason
although as I recall that is the county seat of Ingham county.
I don’t recall what local courts they have in Lansing.
Chuck
From: joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2016 3:24 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: not victim less crime
You forget that apparently they've left it up to our state too for we were
detained and I was arrested for trying to enter the ADA celebration
itself...Statewide one at that and we were blockaged because we had posters,
and leaflets and voicesamongst other issues denoting the state violates the ADA
here daily.
And that includes the State Capitol itself.
No you can't make this shit up.
Now I'm working for a complete change of venue along accessible mass
transit routes to accommodate my witnesses with disabilities for my criminal
trial.
It's too bloody bizarro.
And believe me it is beating me down.
----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Krugman (Redacted sender "ckrugman" for DMARC)
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, March 25, 2016 6:18 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: not victim less crime
well there might now be some hope for Canada now that Trudeau has been
elected prime minister but they still lag way behind on disability
accommodation as they have pretty much left it up to each province to
promulgate accessibility standards.
Chuck
From: joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 5:43 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: not victim less crime
He is still prosecuting me however for trying to get in to my own ADA
event on the State Capitol lawn. You can't make this shit up nowadays. Guess
Lansing's priorities are a bit mixed up.
Meanwhile though I'm still fighting the B.S. the ACLU is finally
listening to me on my expose of how our bureau is not working for blind in this
county on the lead poisoning issue.
There is no justice in these schemas however.
Sorry, I'm really pissy nowadays.
But, when they persecute me and they do the things they do I'm just not
sanguine about our state government at any level, or from any party.
Oh well I'm only forty miles from Canada.
----- Original Message -----
From: Charles Krugman (Redacted sender "ckrugman" for DMARC)
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 1:17 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: not victim less crime
Human trafficking was a problem when I was first starting out as a
young social worker in Michigan 40 years ago. I had clients back then that were
victims. As for Mr. Dunning its time for him to have his law license pulled.
Chuck
From: joe harcz Comcast
Sent: Friday, March 18, 2016 8:01 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] not victim less crime
(Just an aside Dunnings is the one prosecuting me for attempting to
participate in my own ADA Celebration. That said this is an important article
and shows that human trafficking is not a “victimless crime”.”
Joe Harcz
Prostitution, trafficking in Michigan 'a widespread phenomenon' Matt
Mencarini and Justin A. Hinkley, Lansing State Journal LANSING For all the
shock in
seeing Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III in cuffs, the
prostitution-related crimes he's been accused of are all too common, advocates
say. Dunnings,
the 63-year-old lawyer who's been Ingham County's elected prosecutor
for the past 19 years, was charged Monday with one felony and 14 misdemeanors
after
a yearlong investigation found he'd paid for sex hundreds of times with
multiple women in three counties, Attorney General Bill Schuette said. Dunnings
could not be reached for comment on Thursday. The sensationalism of
such charges against a leading law enforcement official garnered national
headlines
. Yet thousands of women and girls are quietly, sometimes violently,
manipulated and abused into selling their bodies for sex every year, advocates
said.
And men and women from all kinds of oc'cup'ations take advantage of
these women or coerce them into prostitution. "I think this is a very
widespread phenomenon,"
said Courtney Walsh, regional specialist for the Washington-based
Polaris, which runs the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. "We see
just a lot
of different demographics and context when it comes to players in
trafficking. "I assure you, it's not a victimless crime," said Dr. LaClaire
Bouknight,
a Lansing physician and chairwoman of the Capital Area Anti-Trafficking
Alliance. "Many of the pimps are very violent. They're controlling the women
with
drugs, threats, threats to harm their families, and I don't consider
that victimless at all. "It's not a happy life," she added. "It's not a Julia
Roberts
story. The charges against Dunnings follow several horrific cases in
the capital city: Agencies across Michigan reported 307 arrests for
prostitution and
human trafficking-related crimes in 2013, and 409 arrests the following
year, according to the most recent available statistics from the Michigan
Incident
Crime Reporting database. Twenty-one of those arrests were women 18
years old or younger, including one reported to be 13 or 14 years old. Six
males 18
or younger were arrested, according to the database maintained by the
Michigan State Police. Arrests were made in urban communities around metro
Detroit
and rural counties in northern Michigan such as Alpena and St. Ignace.
They were made in impoverished areas such as Benton Harbor and tony towns like
St.
Clair Shores. The database includes 26 cases in those years from
Lansing. Those numbers do not tell the whole story. The National Human
Trafficking Resource
Center, which runs a trafficking hotline, took more than 700 phone
calls from Michigan and reported 152 cases of trafficking in the state last
year, at
least 52 of which involved minors. Trafficking also includes forced
labor, but most of those cases involved sex trafficking. That was the
eighth-highest
number of cases in the nation. "Human trafficking is alive and well in
Michigan," Walsh said. Prostitution and sex trafficking which is prostitution
with
some sort of coercion involved can fly under the radar for years and go
missing from the statistics, advocates say. In an affidavit filed with the
charges
against Dunnings, the Ingham County Sheriff's Department alleges the
prosecutor paid for sex multiple times a week as far back as 2010, while
simultaneously
prosecuting sex crimes, collecting campaign donations and winning
elections by large margins. "The reason why it's hiding is because people don't
want
to see that," Laura Swanson, a Lansing-area filmmaker who's finishing
up a documentary about trafficking in Michigan, said of prostitution and
trafficking
in general. "I think we've been told that a victim looks a certain way.
When you don't see that, then you're not likely to call it out. The Internet,
where
women are advertised alongside sports equipment and puppies, has pushed
it even further out of sight. The move from street corners to the Web has made
enforcement and sting operations more elaborate and difficult to
accomplish than simply putting an officer undercover as a prostitute, Lansing
police Public
Information Director Robert Merritt said. Online stings usually require
several departments. Merritt said gun violence and violent crimes are a higher
priority for Lansing police. Bouknight, the Lansing physician, said
pimps and traffickers prey on the most vulnerable people: runaways, foster
children,
people with histories of abuse or even the offspring of prostitutes.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is disproportionately
represented,
she said. Recruiters sometimes the pimp, sometimes the trafficked are
forced to recruit new prostitutes may go to the mall, for example, and prowl,
Bouknight
said. They'll find a girl and tell her how pretty she is, gauge her
self-confidence, and move in if she seems vulnerable. Some women are coerced by
force,
kept on the line with a supply of drugs, or blackmailed because of
compromising photos they've posted online or sent to someone they thought they
loved,
advocates said. Others are bought gifts and treated like girlfriends
before being pulled into prostitution. Dunnings faces a felony charge because,
according
to the affidavit, he coaxed a woman to be paid for sex after she came
to him for help with a custody matter. He also paid for food, rent and drug
treatment
for the women he also paid for sex, court records allege. For her
documentary, called "Break the Chain," Swanson spent time with a Michigan woman
who ran
away from home when she was 13 and met a man whom she thought was
interested in a romantic relationship. The man ended up forcing her to become a
prostitute.
The misconception, Swanson said, is that the prostitutes have chosen
their oc'cup'ation or have been kidnapped. The vast majority are merely
vulnerable
women seeking a better life, who are approached by someone willing to
provide one, she said. "That opportunity seems to be the right one at the time,"
Swanson said. "You have no other reason not to trust that individual.
For the victims, the scars are lifelong, and not all of them are physical. The
women
Dunnings allegedly slept with had bruises from being beaten by their
pimps and track marks on their arms from frequent use of intravenous drugs,
according
to the affidavit, but the trafficked are also emotionally abused and
carry that trauma with them long after they escape the life. "You have to look
beneath
the surface," said Walsh, of the Resource Center. "The reality of a
situation may not be what instantaneously meets the eye. Key to stopping the
problem,
the advocates say, is awareness. Michigan has made human trafficking a
priority. Gov. Rick Snyder signed a package of laws in fall 2014 that created
two
boards focused on the issue and both Schuette and federal law
enforcement have cracked down. The United Auto Workers Local 6000, which
represents thousands
of employees in the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services, has
reached out to the department to train more workers to watch for signs of human
trafficking among those applying for public assistance. But more can be
done. Bouknight said schools should look for consistently truant children.
Doctors,
hospitals and abortion clinics should look for young pregnancies or
frequent pregnancies and abortions. Police and others should look closer at
young people
who are frequently arrested for shoplifting, because some prostitutes
are forced to do that to have nice clothes for their clients. Walsh said the
most
important thing is for community members everywhere to report what they
see so victims can get help and perpetrators can be charged. "Having the
knowledge
is incredibly empowering in trafficking," she said. Contact Matt
Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@xxxxxxx. Follow him on Twitter
@MattMencarini
. Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@xxxxxxx .
Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley . Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM
Weekly,
at on.lsj.com/somsignup . If you are being trafficked and need help, or
if you suspect you've witnessed human trafficking, call the National Human
Trafficking
Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888 or visit
traffickingresourcecenter.org .
