I saw that a few hits came in while I was doing some editing to the blog and making a new post (located here). These came in on a google search term "liesel nowak" and then later "liesel nowak manweiler". These terms are registering roughly 15 hits on the two postings that mention Ms. Nowak. While there is no way to know for certain, it is a good bet that Ms. Nowak googled herself, especially with the location the stats page noted.
If it was Ms. Nowak I'm sure she didn't like my comments about her, but it would certainly give her somewhat of an idea of how her articles hurt me and my family. I also didn't say anything about her articles that I can't back up, because I still have the printouts from the Daily Progress site and I have the original newspapers with her articles. When you are a reporter you are supposed to be objective about what you write. Ms. Nowak was anything but objective, and I can tell by her article that she is left wing and anti-gun. She made it a point to make references in just about every article to my political beliefs. Now how the hell do my political beliefs have anything to do with an internet fight between Ms. Manweiler and I over past bad blood?
Maintaining that I was guilty simply from the results of the plea hearing completely damaged my ability to receive a fair trial should the Judge have thrown out the plea. You see, when the plea hearing took place the Judge had the option of not accepting the plea. This could have taken place at the sentencing hearing on November 8, 2006. The Judge could easily have decided to not accept the plea or the agreement. This would result in getting a new Judge and continuing on with the trial phase as if the plea hearing never took place. So Ms. Nowak proclaiming in her article that I am guilty when the Judge hasn't even ruled on the case could have interfered with me getting a fair trial.
Putting words in my mouth also didn't help. I am paraphrasing from memory (as I don't have the article in front of me) that Ms. Nowak said "Mr. <Redacted> is pleading guilty because he wants to take responsibility for his actions and avoid additional prison time". The way that she had phrased it in her article resulted in a number of people asking me if I had actually said this to Ms. Nowak.
The family friend who edited the VSB inquiry and the motion documents is a retired journalist. Upon reading Ms. Nowak's comment in the article my mother showed her, the family friend immediately said "I thought you said Ricky didn't speak to any reporters?" Upon hearing that I did not speak to Ms. Nowak or any other reporter, this family friend was upset and said we needed to sue Ms. Nowak and the Daily Progress. The only reason I did not sue was due to concern for retribution from the Charlottesville law enforcement when they heard of the lawsuit. If a lawyer tells me that I can still get a Judge to take that into account and continue forward with a lawsuit, there is a very good chance I may take this to court. I have to worry about getting the plea thrown out first however. While Ms. Nowak had no way of knowing that the real reason I plead guilty was due to railroading and destruction of evidence by C'ville law enforcement, you don't just make up a reason why a person plead guilty.
As for Ms. Nowak's continued comments that I was arrested in Charlottesville attempting to confront Ms. Manweiler over a protective order (that I didn't even know existed prior to my arrest, because it was an emergency PO and they do not warn you about those), Ms. Nowak needs to learn how to followup her sources. I have already laid out the events of my arrest in my Myth v. Fact post found here. I believe there is also an additional post describing this in more detail, though I could just be thinking of my case summary in my motion and the VSB inquiry. If I find it I'll update this post with the link.
I was arrested in Hampton right down the road from my home by Hampton police officers, and I was dragged up to Charlottesville that night by Detective Rudman and his partner (a detective whose name I didn't get). As I have said before, this was done for the purpose of lying to the public to make my case seem more threatening, just as the lie about the rifle I owned (that actually had nothing to do with the case as mentioned here) was used to scare people. This is a common practice by the Charlottesville law enforcement based on the information I received from other inmates. The CPD and the C'ville DA's Office make their cases sound worse, so that they get more attention. It makes the CPD look like they are putting more effort into a case then what they actually performed. In my situation, Hampton police did all the work and Charlottesville PD took all the credit.
While a reporter can only report what they are told, that does not excuse Ms. Nowak for not following up on her source's comments. Other news organizations fell for the lie as well, but eventually they discovered that they were wrong. Unfortunately instead of correcting it, most news reporters just stopped saying anything about the details of my arrest rather than admit they screwed up. But Ms. Nowak continued to report the same false information right up to the article she put out the day after my release. I still have that paper, along with the others.
Not only could Ms. Nowak have looked at the police report, which is public record, but a page of it was in my court file while the case was in District Court (it was apparently not transferred to the Circuit Court file, but again it is public record so it can still be found). My mother drove three hours from Hampton to get a page of the report that was in the District Court file, which said that I was transferred the night of my arrest from the Hampton Lockup to the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. So Ms. Nowak, how could I have been arrested in Charlottesville if I was already in jail at the Hampton lockup and transferred to Charlottesville? While you may not live in the city of Charlottesville, I guarantee your commute to the court house is less than the three hour drive my mother took.
Ms. Nowak's careless reporting, along with some of the other insane coverage of my case, was a big reason I decided to cave to the Prosecution's threats made against me. Ms. Nowak was busy putting false information and proclaiming me guilty before a Judge's ruling. I felt that there was no possibility of a fair trial, both for the news coverage and the fact Ms. Manweiler was a UVA student. If Andrew Alston, a UVA student with a rich father, can get a slap on the wrist for stabbing someone to death - how was I to receive a fair trial when I'm accused of threatening a UVA student with a rich father?
Not only did the individual I mentioned not get 20 years good behavior, I have a five year suspended sentence while he was only given three and a half years to serve. Alston also only served two thirds of that sentence for good behavior - sure he killed someone, but he was a well behaved prisoner. I was even told by inmates that the guy was sent to a level one white collar prison. For voluntary manslaughter?! I actually received worse conditions in my plea agreement than a man WHO KILLED SOMEONE. Even child molesters and rapists don't get what I received for just running my mouth over the internet. If that doesn't tell you how corrupt Charlottesville and the Manweiler's are, then there is something wrong.
If this was Ms. Nowak looking at this page, you would have no right to be angry at my comments. You didn't do your job and your malicious actions contributed to the harm that was done to me. I have no doubt that you don't care though, a lot of reporters couldn't care less about the people they hurt as long as they get their press time.
I believe I need to move even faster on my case after seeing the Nowak searches. My views are climbing higher and higher as this blog makes it on more blog listing sites as well. Not to mention I've known for some time that Ms. Manweiler is the one viewing my page through the "michelle manweiler rotwieler" searches. I knew before this blog was even created that she was stalking me online. Even friends of her's sent me friend list invites on my two online profiles when I set them to private. Just to see what they would do I would accept knowing there wasn't anything for them. They hung around long enough to look around my profile, then removed themselves from my contact list. So finding out with 100% certainty that she has been reading the blog did not come as a surprise to me.
Another thing I have to wonder about is whether Ms. Nowak knew Ms. Manweiler personally. It would certainly explain why she would attack me in her articles. It would reflect poorly on the Daily Progress if they had placed a reporter with a conflict of interest on this story. Ms. Nowak isn't much older than Ms. Manweiler and I, so it is conceivable that Ms. Nowak and Ms. Manweiler knew each other. After all the latest "michelle manweiler rotwieler" search, that I know is being conducted by Ms. Manweiler, happened on Saturday. I had the first post mentioning Ms. Nowak posted by that time. Then Monday Ms. Nowak (I'm assuming, though highly likely) happens to google herself and view this blog. Very interesting that this occurred within a short span of time.
This is merely speculation however, and it would obviously require investigation to get to the truth. I've already considered the possibility of hiring a private investigator after the plea agreement is invalidated. To find out if Ms. Nowak and Ms. Manweiler know each other would be of interest to adding to the investigation, though it is not the primary reason for wanting to hire the investigator. The purpose of this initially was to investigate Mr. Gregory Manweiler's personal contacts to discover who may have influenced the Charlottesville law enforcement on behalf of the Manweiler's.
My family and I know someone in a position of authority put pressure on the law enforcement to cause me harm, as many of the actions taken during my incarceration showed a personal desire to cause maximum injury over such a stupid issue. One example is that on the day of my sentencing, when I was to be released, the jail staff made excuses to hold me in the jail as long as they possibly could. I'll go into detail later about their actions, but it was obvious they were making excuses to hold me until late at night. Even other inmates said that something was up.
So we KNOW someone high up was involved in this case. Whether Mr. Manweiler was involved or not is something I have no evidence of, though I do personally believe he was. There is also the possibility that the current Chief Justice of the Virginia Court of Appeals, who Ms. Manweiler interned for as a clerk, could have played a part. He certainly fits the profile - in a high position of power in the legal/political scene and has a connection to the Manweiler family. Whether this Judge was involved or not, again I have no evidence of this. I will however get to the bottom of this one day and expose anyone I turn up.
Regardless of the existence (or lack there of) of a connection between Ms. Manweiler and Ms. Nowak, Ms. Manweiler hasn't tried anything yet. But then she did wait from December 2005 to June 2006 before she moved forward with her plans. So just because she's been monitoring me for some time doesn't mean Ms. Manweiler isn't cooking something up. So I'm going to have to speed things up and quit second guessing myself.
This is my last semester before graduating with another degree (was supposed to be done last semester, but they canceled a class from low enrollment and it put me off a semester) so I do have a higher class load than even last semester. Plus I have to speak to an advisor about what needs to be done to further my CAD degree, as I have decided that moving into a computer science degree isn't for me. However, I have to make the time to get this legal mess over with, as none of these degrees mean anything with a felony hanging over my head.
